A Three Dog Life

Author Abigail Thomas shares the story of how she started a new life after an accident left her husband brain damaged and institutionalized.

Presents an uplifting memoir about the author's life after the devastating loss of her husband, changes in a once-platonic friendship, her daughter's illness, and the death of a beloved dog.

Contrary to popular belief Polio is not extinct. This is the true story of an indomitable spirit afflicted with unimaginable physical and psychological challenges. Paul Alexander’s life is a saga that started in 1946 and has been profoundly shaped by the Polio epidemic of the early 1950’s. Survivors of the 1950’s Polio Epidemic in America are rare. Polio victims, like Paul Alexander, who require the assistance of an “Iron Lung” respirator for their life’s breath are even rarer. Paul Alexander has crafted his life against all odds and has a courageous and compelling story to share with us all. Victims of Polio, their families, friends and communities are struggling to cope with this obscure but still dangerous infectious disease. This book is a testimony to the strength of the human spirit and an affirmation of the need to continue efforts to eradicate the pestilence of Polio from the planet.

A beautifully crafted and inviting account of one woman’s life, Safekeeping offers a sublimely different kind of autobiography. Setting aside a straightforward narrative in favor of brief passages of vivid prose, Abigail Thomas revisits the pivotal moments and the tiny incidents that have shaped her life: pregnancy at 18; single motherhood (of three!) by the age of 26; the joys and frustrations of three marriages; and the death of her second husband, who was her best friend. The stories made of these incidents are startling in their clarity and reassuring in their wisdom. This is a book in which silence speaks as eloquently as what is revealed. Openhearted and effortlessly funny, these brilliantly selected glimpses of the arc of a life are, in an age of excessive confession and recrimination, a welcome tonic.

In this delightful novel, Abigail Thomas takes readers back to the summer of 1960 and into the heart of a young woman embarking on a marriage not exactly made in heaven.

Once upon a time in Provence, Peter Mayle adopted a dog of uncertain origins and dubious hunting skills and gave him a name—Boy. Now he gives this canny canine a voice in an irresistible “memoir” that proves that the best vantage point for observing life may well be on all fours. As Boy recounts his progress from an overcrowded maternal bosom to unchallenged mastery of the Mayle household, he tells us why dogs are drawn to humans (“our most convenient support system”) and chickens (“that happy combination of sport and nourishment”). We share in his amorous dalliances, his run-ins with French plumbers and cats, and in the tidbits (both conversational and edible) of his owners’ dinner parties. Enhanced by fifty-nine splendidly whimsical drawings by Edward Koren, A Dog’s Life gives us all the delights we expect from any book by Peter Mayle—pedigree prose, biting wit, and a keen nose for the fragrance of civilization—together with the insouciant wisdom of which only a dog (and probably only Peter Mayle’s dog) is capable.

I lay there shaking like a Vegematic and sweating through the blankets. I prayed, "Please let me die or give me one minute of peace from this sickness." Then it happened. I knew then, and I still know now, that God did something for me that I could not do for myself. It was a gift. I was weak, alone, desperate, dying, and afraid. I surrendered. I prayed. He saved me. That's the only way I can explain what for me was the beginning of a miracle. Three Dog Nightmare is the autobiography of Chuck Negron, and it is the story of one of the most successful rock groups ever, Three Dog Night. But unlike so many rock bios, this is much more than a self-indulgent paean to sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Three Dog Nightmare is a profoundly moral tale, an inspiring story of recovery and resurrection. But without a fall, there can be no resurrection. Few have fallen as hard, or as low. And even though we know the outcome, even though we know that he survived, Chuck Negron's is a story that seems at times almost too painful to read in its devastatingly sad portrayal of wasted talent, ruined chances, and burned lives. I shoved drugs into my system like a little kid eating candy. And in the end, it took away everything: my money, my fame, my wives, my children, and my self-respect. I traded a Mediterranean-style villa in the Hollywood Hills for a corner of an abandoned building where I slept on a filthy mattress I found in a vacant lot. That he survived at all is a miracle; that he has his career back on track and a new life devoted to helping other drug abusers is an inspiration.

“A ravishingly strange and gorgeous book about a dog that’s really about life and everything there is…astonishing.” —Helen Macdonald, New York Times-bestselling author of H Is for Hawk In 1990, poet Eileen Myles chose Rosie from a litter of pit bulls on the street, and their connection instantly became central to the writer's life and work. During the course of their sixteen years together, Myles was madly devoted to the dog’s well-being, especially in her final days. Starting from the emptiness following Rosie's death, Afterglow launches a heartfelt and fabulist investigation into the true nature of the bond between pet and pet owner. Through this lens, we witness Myles’s experiences with intimacy and spirituality, celebrity and politics, alcoholism and recovery, fathers and family history, as well as the fantastical myths we spin to get to the heart of grief. Moving from an imaginary talk show where Rosie is interviewed by Myles’s childhood puppet to a critical reenactment of the night Rosie mated with another pit bull, from lyrical transcriptions of their walks to Rosie’s enlightened narration from the afterlife, Afterglow illuminates all that it can mean when we dedicate our existence to a dog. “Myles gets at something no other dog book I’ve read has gotten at quite this distinctly: The sense of wordless connection and spiritual expansion you feel when you love and are loved by a creature who’s not human…raw and affecting.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR