View source for The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs with Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell

{{infobox1
|title=The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs with Foreword
|sort=Big New Yorker Book of Dogs with Foreword
|author=Malcolm Gladwell
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Pets
|summary=A glorious, rich collection of all things canine.  If you love dogs, you will adore this book - we promise.  Highly recommended.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=416
|publisher=William Heinemann
|date=November 2012
|isbn=978-0434022397
|cover=Gladwell_NYDogs
|aznuk=043402239X
|aznus=043402239X
}}

I think it's fair to say that you're not even going to pick this book up unless you're a dog lover.  If you've always yearned for a cat and shudder at the thought of early morning walks in the rain then this is definitely no the book for you.  But - if you know, or are known by a dog then it's the equivalent of that massive hamper of chocolate delights to a chocoholic.  Only a magazine like the ''New Yorker'' could raid its archives and produce such a massive compendium of humour, illustrations, essays, fiction, poems and cartoons about dogs, or have a cast of writers which could put many a bookshop to shame.

Firstly, you need to make yourself comfortable with the book.  In much the same way that you wouldn't eat your way straight through that hamper of chocolate delights, this is going to be a book which you dip into when the mood takes you for something appropriate to the moment.  But you need to have the sense of what's there. Malcolm Gladwell gives an excellent introduction to the book in his Foreword and it really is worth reading.  Make yourself familiar with the sections - ''Good Dogs'', ''Bad Dogs'', ''Top Dogs'' and ''Under Dogs''.

I've just opened the book at random.  I don't normally read poetry, but I was intrigued by ''Your Face on the Dog's Neck'' by Anne Sexton, which spoke to me more on a second reading - and delighted by the cover picture from July 1967 (35 cents it was then...) where three society ladies yak at each other - and their three dogs do exactly the same.  Overleaf there's an article about Leona Helmsley by Jeffrey Toobin - and it's called ''Rich Bitch''.  It's one of the lengthier pieces in the book at about ten pages, but it's fascinating and informative.  There are also a few excellent cartoons scattered through the text along with another ''New Yorker'' cover.  That's all in the space of a genuinely random fourteen pages.

Add into the mix the fact that you're going to find some of your favourite authors here.  James Thurber wrote brilliantly about dogs: he understood the dog mind and there are four pieces by him as well as an article on Thurber's dogs by Adam Gopnik.  There's Ogden Nash, E B White, Arthur Miller, Roald Dahl, Roddy Doyle and ... well, if I go on it's going to seem like a telephone directory without the numbers.  This book is ''quality'' and ''quantity'' - and highly recommended.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

If this book appeals then there's a very strong chance that you'll love [[Old Dogs by Gene Weingarten and Michael S Williamson (Photographer)]].  You might also appreciate [[Canine Perspectives by David Cavill]].

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[[Category:Anthologies]]