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Dreaming in Libro: How a Good Dog Tamed a Bad Woman Paperback – June 10, 2008
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- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDa Capo Press
- Publication dateJune 10, 2008
- Dimensions4.75 x 0.5 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100738211680
- ISBN-13978-0738211688
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Product details
- Publisher : Da Capo Press; Reprint edition (June 10, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0738211680
- ISBN-13 : 978-0738211688
- Item Weight : 6.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.75 x 0.5 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #11,133,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #89,550 in Animal & Pet Care
- #230,360 in Memoirs (Books)
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The author's self-centeredness made the book sound like it had mostly to do with her, and yeah, there's a dog somewhere in the story, too. It read like Louise was trying too hard to appear intelligent for her reader. I've read a few people's personal encounters with the author that seem to verify how lost in her own little world she is.
Anyways, overall the book read shallow, self-centered, and it was hard to feel connected and immersed in the story. I hope her relationship with Libro wasn't as one-sided as the book was.
As a side note, I was appalled to read that in her previous book she kicked Libro after it chewed up something of hers. If you are a dog lover, you shouldn't support this author by buying her book, which I regret now having unintentionally done.
I recommend instead you read Marley & Me, or Merle's Door, time better spent.
Louise Bernikow was, when I was hanging out with her some decades ago, very much not a "dog person". A noted journalist and feminist historian, she was the fiercest woman I knew in New York: annoyingly smart, achingly attractive, a bachelorette to the death.
And that wasn't just my take.
Louise Bernikow would be the first to tell you that she has done her share of dancing on tables. She has kissed a date good night --- and raced out for a nightcap with his brother. And in the days when she owned a car, she writes, "I carried a nightgown, birth control and my passport in the trunk... ready to leave for Paris at a moment's notice."
But as she was jogging in Riverside Park one spring afternoon, she spotted a crowd. In its center, a police car. And, in the back seat, the cause of the fuss: a purebred boxed with a stumpy tail and "those eyes".
Inexplicably, she took him home.
Louise and Libro's "getting to know you" period is described in her first "dog" book, 'Bark If You Love Me. I did not read it for the simple fact that I could not believe Louise wrote it. Friends told me how charming it was, how well written, how very Louise; nothing would lure me.
Now Louise Bernikow has a second "dog" memoir. Again, friends banged on about it. This time, the combination of an appealing subtitle and personal nostalgia got me to peek inside. Great first sentence: "My mother always told me I would grow into my feet and my nose." And the "how we met" story wasn't bad. Before I knew it, I was reading --- and I was appalled.
Here is Louise, padding around on all fours beside her dog ("partly for knowledge of his spatial perspective").
Here is Louise, babbling to her dog "like an infatuated nincompoop."
Here is Louise, once capable of leaving her apartment and not coming home for days, now rushing home at Swiss-watch intervals and climbing four flights of stairs to feed and walk her dog.
As I say, appalling.
But also, here is Louise jabbing me in the eye with perceptions that dog owners have never shared with me. "Perhaps what animal lovers really love is access to their own tenderness," she writes. And: "Just because a man is nice to his dog doesn't mean he is a nice man."
As I kept reading, the ratio of treacle to smart changed. Smart won, paw's down. Because although it seemed like madness for Louise to treat Libro as if he were human, Libro was clearly an advanced being --- Louie's personal guru, as it turns out.
There are wonderful chapters here: Louise's book tour in California, Libro in tow, is a hoot, and lucky are those who showed up at bookstores to catch their double act. And there is something charming about a woman who relaxes her search for love with a man because she's already found it with a dog.
One argument about pets is that you are likely to survive them --- and then you have to deal with the grief. Not so fast, in this case. Louise gets cancer, and this time, it's the dog who/that has to adjust. And then, later.....
But I don't want to suggest that this is the 'Death Be Not Proud' of the canine brigade. `Dreaming in Libro' is, for most of its breezy, 202 pages, an unleashed romp in the park. Dog lovers who read it will be nodding like bobbleheads. Cat lovers will be jealous as...oh...cats.
There are not many books that you read and then rush to read aloud to someone else because they are so funny. This book is full of such moments. (Yes, I did read bits aloud to humans, as well). I won't spoil the reading by my telling--I hate reviews like that. I will say the two things I love about this book: the writing--it is wonderful, witty, and winsome--and the dogs. Libro is a Buddha in brindle coat. And of course my own pooches, spotted Buddhas who watch over me, one from the other side and one from my bed side (when he's not sneaking into it!).
Now I have thought of a third thing I love--the relationship between author and dog, writer and muse, human and canine friends. Parts of DREAMING IN LIBRO remind me of A Kinship With Life, that well read tome from the 1930s that documents communicating with animals, especially the dog star, Strongheart. Without even knowing what she is doing Bernikow develops a relationship with Libro that is equal--partners--not owner or master and inferior beast. As dog lovers everywhere know, we are the inferior beasts.
It's a beach book, a bedtime book, a gift book, a read to your dog aloud book--what more could one want? If only Libro had liked cats, it would also be a cat lover book. If I say more I will start quoting my favorite parts and that will ruin all your fun, so buy this book for a friend, a lover, a dog.