Good Dog. Stay.
Book Tracking
Sign up to add this book to your recommneded, reading, or planned reading list.
Book Covers
Multiple editions, click to view covers:
Book Details
Written by Anna Quindlen.
Buy this on Amazon
($14.95)
Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau. With her trademark wisdom and humor, Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau’s, and on the lessons she’s learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, “I smell bacon!”Of the dog that once possessed a catcher’s mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, “there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”
Heartening and bittersweet, Good Dog. Stay. honors the life of a cherished and loyal friend and offers us a valuable lesson on our four-legged family members: Sometimes an old dog can teach us new tricks.
User Reviews (1) Login or create an account to write a review.
Dale Brayden thinks this book is Nothing Special.
I suppose this was a heartfelt book; Quindlan certainly cared a great deal about her dog, and her other dogs. But this small book felt exploitative to me. It is a very small book (you can read it in 30 minutes at most). Unlike most books about dogs, this one contains almost no information about the dog when he wes young and healthy - just a two page summary. It's like the Reader's Digest Condensed version of typical 'my dog, who died' book.
The book has photos of dogs on every page. Some of them are photos of Beau, the subject of the book. I have no idea who most of the other dogs are, and no explanation is given. The photos, printed in black and white, seem to have mostly been shot in color. As a result they lack the contrast and clarity of black and white photos. And, print quality aside, what purpose do all those photos of (apparently random) dogs serve?