Why am I passionate about this?
For most of my life no one guessed I could fall for a dog, much less write a book about one. I associated dogs with drool on the floor and fur all over everything. One of those “just a dog” people, I thought the marriage bed should be strictly for humans. It crossed my mind that an eager dog would keep me from working into the night at the office where I ran Chatelaine, Canada’s premier magazine for women, but I chose a treadmill at the Y over rambles with a dog. At 65 I discovered my inner dog person. A ragged-eared mutt is now my joy and my muse.
Rona's book list on the power of loving a dog
Why did Rona love this book?
“She died sniffing life, and enjoying it,” wrote E.B. White in his obituary for Daisy, a terrier hit by a cab while smelling a Manhattan flower shop.
White had a keen eye for the distinctive personalities of dogs, and he shared his life with many, who scamper to life in this compendium of essays, letters, and occasional pieces. My favorite of his canine characters, the curmudgeonly dachshund Fred, “saw in every bird, every squirrel, every housefly, every rat, every skunk, every porcupine, a security risk and a present danger to his republic.”
White had better-natured dogs; none got under his skin like Fred. Love can be complicated, White reminds us. Even between human and dog.
1 author picked E.B. White on Dogs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
E. B. White (1899-1985) is best known for his children's books, Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. Columnist for The New Yorker for over half a century and co-author of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, White hit his stride as an American literary icon when he began publishing his "One Man's Meat" columns from his saltwater farm on the coast of Maine.
In E. B. White on Dogs, his granddaughter and manager of his literary estate, Martha White, has compiled the best and funniest of his essays, poems, letters, and sketches depicting over a…