1/17/2006

Reading Marley & Me, by John Grogan. It's the story of a very bad (and also very good) dog. She says the book is great--very funny and touching. Her mother gave it to her back in April because she also has a dog. She rescued it from the shelter and, because she couldn't come up with a name, left it as it was--Marley! Her Marley is a smaller version of the dog in the book, though is bad (and good) just like him--he has enthusiastic running and thrashing fits and is an obstinate potty trainee. Since moving to San Francisco a month ago from Ohio, however, Marley has been more interested in his potty training--it's not as cold here!

Another good dog book is, believe it or not, The places in Between, by Rory Stewart, who writes about walking across Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban . I got the book for Christmas and couldn't put it down once I started it. As much as it is a story about the politics of Afghanistan and it's people, it's also, from the middle of the book onward, a love story about a man and his dog, who he is gifted by a village to protect him from the wolves. Though skeptical the toothless, decrepit, one hundred forty pound beast could take on one wolf, let alone a whole pack, Stewart adopts the animal and the two venture through mountain passes deep with snow and, when there's no snow--land mines, side by side, caring for each other.