My Challenges (timed)


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My Challenges (perpetual)

100 SHOTS OF SHORT
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CHECKIN’ OFF THE CHEKHOV
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THE COMPLETE BOOKER
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MARTEL-HARPER CHALLENGE
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MODERN LIBRARY'S 100 BEST NOVELS

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NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
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TAMMY'S BEYOND BOOKS CHALLENGE

New York Times Book Review: 6/40
New Yorker: 0/36
New York Review of Books: 0/20
Vogue: 1/16
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life by Jon Katz

Title: A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life

Author: Jon Katz

Publication Date: 2006

No. of Pages: 256

Synopsis (from B&N): "People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance. Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.”–Jon Katz

"In this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unforgettable.

From the moment Katz and Orson meet, when the dog springs from his traveling crate at Newark airport and panics the baggage claim area, their relationship is deep, stormy, and loving. At two years old, Katz’s new companion is a great herder of school buses, a scholar of refrigerators, but a dud at herding sheep. Everything Katz attempts– obedience training, herding instruction, a new name, acupuncture, herb and alternative therapies–helps a little but not enough, and not for long.

While Katz is trying to help his dog, Orson is helping him, shepherding him toward a new life on a two-hundred-year-old hillside farm in upstate New York. There, aided by good neighbors and a tolerant wife, hip-deep in sheep, chickens, donkeys, and more dogs, the man and his canine companion explore meadows, woods, and even stars, wade through snow, bask by a roaring wood stove, and struggle to keep faith with each other. There, with deep love, each embraces his unfolding destiny."

Fiction or Nonfiction: Nonfiction

Comments and Critique: This is so much more than just a story of a man and his dog. Katz was completely committed to Orson, in a way that we don't often see a person being committed to either an animal or even another human being. It's heartwarming to read about a person who has deep feelings for another and is true to them, staying with their loved one through thick and thin and doing whatever is necessary to make that loved one's life as good as possible, even when doing so is inconvenient, expensive, or emotionally draining. The fact that the loved one in this case was a dog doesn't detract from the commitment a bit. This is the third book I've read by this author, and while this one wasn't as lighthearted or funny as the others (see The Dogs of Bedlam Farm), this one got closer to documenting the depth of mankind's attachment to dogs. In doing so, it also helps reflect on those things that make us human.

Would You Recommend This Book to Others: Yes, along with the author's other works.

Challenges: What's in a Name? Challenge

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