Hello all! Happy Monday! I hope that each and every one of you had an amazing, fun-filled weekend. We enjoyed some time out and about making some great new friends, dog and human alike.
For the last couple of days I have been reading a new book and loved it so much that I thought I would start a new weekly book review. Focused on dog and cat books of the fiction and nonfiction variety. I give you Reading with Abbey & Basil.
Usually I stay away from books about animals mostly because of Marley & Me. That book and movie killed me! I am such an animal lover that the thought of a lovable fur baby dying, real or otherwise, is just unbearable. I’ve tried several times, with different books, but it always ends in me reading about 15 pages and just “knowing” that this is going to end badly, so I stop.
On Thursday of last week, when I stepped up to my bookcase in search of a new book to read and found You had me at woof : How dogs taught me the secrets of happiness, I was a bit wary. I had purchased the book about 6 months ago almost completely based on the unbelievably adorable Boston terrier on the cover. I fell in love with this little guy, shown in black and white with his little tongue sticking out of his mouth as if he just knows he couldn’t look cuter.
In our house buying a book you have no real plans to ever read is completely normal. My husband designs book covers for a living and just loves having good work all around our home. This is all I thought this book was going to be for me, a beautifully designed book with the cutest dog in the world (next to Basil… of course!) on the cover.
I stand there, holding this book in my hands and for some reason or another I felt like this was the right time, the right book, to take a chance. A chance that for the next few days I was going to cry my eyes out as I read a tale about this adorable Boston’s journey to the grave. Although there were parts of this book that had be fighting back tears and had me thinking about how we lost our dear old man, Nolan, this was not a sad story.
It was a story about love, and hope. Family, and compassion. It really was a story about how one woman fell in love with dogs and how that, in the end changed her life. Over the few days it took me to complete the 228 page story I found myself really connecting with the author. Finding that, even though our lives are completely different, they are very much the same. Each story in the book was beautifully written in a way that made you laugh, (out loud, at times) and feel that though some of the things that happened are completely absurd they are also completely relatable.
The author, Julie Klam, shares with her readers her experiences in the world of rescuing, fostering, and placing Boston terriers in New York City. With every turn of the page you can just feel her falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of this crazy dog world and never wanting to return to the “normal” dog pee free life again.
You had me at woof: How dogs taught me the secrets of happiness will make you feel the full spectrum of emotions but its worth it. I highly recommend stopping by the book store and picking up a copy today, if you love dogs, you will not be disappointed.
Travel well, nap well, live well!
-Abbey & Basil
