7 Tail-Wagging Tales About Man’s Best Friend

Garth Stein’s book on love, family, and hope examines the intricacies and ultimately inanity of everyday human life. Told from the point of view of the family retriever-terrier Enzo, it’s hard not to love this sentimental novel.

Unconditional love comes in many forms in this heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and their wondrously ill-behaved dog.

This improbable story of a fifteen-year-old boy’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for a captivating, widely heralded novel.

Spanning from a dog’s improbable discovery on a battlefield in 1918 to his tumultuous rise through Hollywood and beyond, this is a quintessentially American story of reinvention.

A moody Labrador and his insecure human take a funny and touching four-month, thirty-two–state, 13,000-mile cross-country RV trip into the heart of the most powerful interspecies bond there is: America’s relationship with dogs.

When sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrives at Littlefield, Massachusetts—named one of the ten best places to live in America—to study the charming village, someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. With an element of suspense and satirical social commentary, Suzanne Berne’s novel is a compelling comedy of maners.

A bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto veterinary clinic. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, become divided among themselves, and struggle with new thoughts and feelings.

Here are more great book recommendations from our friends at Off the Shelf: