Dog Days

Although his name is familiar to me, having seen his books on the shelf in the public library, I have never read any of Dean Koontz's work - until last week. The Dearly Beloved received one of his books as a Christmas present and I felt I ought to learn something about his writing. I had the feeling that A Big Little Life was somewhere outside his usual type of work in that it is the biography of a dog. One reviewer has described it as "one dog book that everyone other than the most flint-hearted dog-haters will deeply enjoy". Neither the Dearly Beloved nor I could go along whole-heartedly with that description. Both of us considered that Koontz goes way over the top in his attribution of human-like thoughts and emotions to a dog, and the passages of purple prose left me feeling almost embarrassed - until I learned to recognise the signs of the imminent start of them. Then I skipped to the next paragraph. I might try another of his books just to see if ths one is typical if his work. I hope it's not. My star rating: just two.

Coincidentally, I have read another dog biography since: Saving Izzy, by Jon Katz. The jacket designer has subtitled this The Abandoned Dog Who Stole My Heart - his caps, not mine. This was another present for the DB, one I spotted on the supermarket shelf and picked up thinking it might while away an otherwise boring hour or so for her. Given the title and subtitle, I was surprised to find that it is not a book about a dog called Izzy, although he does feature strongly. It is more a series of anecdotes about all the animals (and people) on Katz's New England farm. While it is not a book that I would describe as a page-turner, it is interesting enough - and at least his is a more down-to-earth view of dogs than that shown by Koontz. I enjoyed it, but it doesn't rate more than three stars.