Memoirs Of A Yellow Dog

It is not very often that we get to read a story told by a dog. However O. Henry’s "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog" gives us a peek through the dog Lovey’s mind. Lovey feels a strong despise for his mistress - a fat lady who does nothing but eat and gossip. At the same time he is determined to save his owner who is constantly working and trying to provide for his unthankful wife. This comic tale about the love and loyalty between a pet and his owner is turned upside down. But this is exactly why O. Henry’s stories with surprise endings are so popular and loved. William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, was an American writer who lived in the late 19th century. He gains wide popularity with his short stories which often take place either in New York or some small American towns. The plot twists and the surprise endings are a typical and integral part of O. Henry’s short stories. Some of his best known works are "The Gift of the Magi", "The Cop and the Anthem", "A Retrieved Reformation". His stories often deal with ordinary people and the individual aspects of life. As a result of the outstanding literature legacy that O. Henry left behind, there is an American annual award after his name, given to exceptional short stories.

The story is narrated by a yellow dog who lives in New York. The yellow dog recounts his life, his owners, and his love for his master (and his dislike for his master’s wife). Man and dog really do have a stronger bond in this story than man and wife, and ‘Memoirs of a Yellow Dog’ is a classic short story about our four-legged friends. O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.

A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history. “A candid and achingly fractured memoir of [Geller’s] mother, her family, her Navajo heritage and her own journey to self-discovery and acceptance.”—Ms. SHORTLISTED FOR: The Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, The Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Esquire, She Reads When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey where she confronts her family's history and the decisions that she herself had been forced to make while growing up, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation. Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose.

Traces the author's four-year relationship with a wolf-dog hybrid named Inyo, recounting their shared journeys in the snow, her battles with fearful neighbors, and the wolfdog's ultimate inability to be domesticated.

In a lyrical love letter to guide dogs everywhere, a blind poet shares his delightful story of how a guide dog changed his life and helped him discover a newfound appreciation for travel and independence. Stephen Kuusisto was born legally blind—but he was also raised in the 1950s and taught to deny his blindness in order to "pass" as sighted. Stephen attended public school, rode a bike, and read books pressed right up against his nose. As an adult, he coped with his limited vision by becoming a professor in a small college town, memorizing routes for all of the places he needed to be. Then, at the age of thirty-eight, he was laid off. With no other job opportunities in his vicinity, he would have to travel to find work. This is how he found himself at Guiding Eyes, paired with a Labrador named Corky. In this vivid and lyrical memoir, Stephen Kuusisto recounts how an incredible partnership with a guide dog changed his life and the heart-stopping, wondrous adventure that began for him in midlife. Profound and deeply moving, this is a spiritual journey, the story of discovering that life with a guide dog is both a method and a state of mind.

“The lessons that these animals taught me have been subtle, startling, and inspirational, playing a small but vital part in helping to shape the person you see with the stethoscope around his neck.” —Dr. Nick Trout New York Times bestselling author Nick Trout has captivated readers by taking them behind the scenes into the heartwarming—and sometimes heartrending—world of veterinary medicine. In Ever By My Side, Nick turns the lens inward to offer a funny, moving, and intimate memoir about how the pets he has had throughout his life have shaped him into the son, husband, father, and doctor he is today. Using his relationships with those beloved animals to tell his life story, Nick shares the profound lessons he’s learned about friendship, loyalty, and resilience. The result is a moving story that speaks not just to animal lovers, but to any reader who appreciates the bonds we have with our loved ones, be they animal or human, and the lengths to which we go to nurture those bonds. Nick waxes nostalgic about his boyhood in a working-class British suburb, where a large German shepherd named Patch was the perfect companion to a scrawny, bookish boy in a neighborhood full of bullies. He writes about his relationship with his father, the man who nurtured Nick’s dream of becoming a vet, even though he couldn’t have imagined the career would lead his only son 3,000 miles away. He describes wooing his future wife and stepdaughter and (perhaps most difficult of all) their ornery cat. And he offers a poignant chronicle of his daughter’s devastating diagnosis of cystic fibrosis and how a little yellow Labrador retriever played an important role in bringing joy to their family when they needed it most. Alongside Nick’s warm reflections, the pets in these pages come alive as irresistible characters in their own right and showcase the power of animals to offer a lifetime of consolation, guidance, and abiding affection. Tender, wry, and ruminative, Ever By My Side is a tribute to the power and beauty of ordinary life and a celebration of how pets make it all the sweeter and richer.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ... if you were sitting in school one morning and suddenly found you couldn't see? When it happens to Matt VanFossan during his third year of college, it's the start of a life he hasn't planned on and definitely doesn't want. A few months later, paired with a guide dog, he's still in a state of denial. But Matt's new companion, named Gilly, isn't one for self-pity - or modesty. He describes himself as "one of the handsomest dogs at guide dog school." A keen observer of the human condition, especially his human's condition, Gilly provides a running commentary on Matt's progress. And as Gilly and Matt learn to work together, the two gradually forge a relationship that transcends the ordinary bonds between dog and man. From dog training school then back to college, from home and on to Brazil, Gilly relates their story with humor and insight. Through challenging adventures, new friendships, and ultimately, lasting love, Gilly provides Matt with guidance and companionship for six years - a lifetime that will last forever. Not a dog lover? You will be once you've finished this tale and looked at the world through Gilly's eyes. FROM THE BOOK: "Matt and I made our first solo foray onto campus. I had no idea where we were going, and Matt, it turned out, had only a vague one. The two of us made an extremely awkward team. As we started off down the block, he began counting his steps in a low voice. Smart boy, I thought. I wouldn't be able to find our house on the very first return trip. He'd be able to cue me on the way back. Unfortunately, walking and counting at the same time didn't seem to be one of his strengths. I distinctly heard him say the number 'sixty' twice. Then, I heard him curse. Finally, we reached the intersection. 'Two hundred and fourteen, ' he announced. Give or take a few dozen, I thought.

“Mining companies piled trash coal in a slag heap and set it ablaze. The coal burned up, but the slate didn’t. The heat turned it rose and orange and lavender. The dirt road I lived on was paved with that sharp-edged rock. We called it Red Dog. My grandmother always told me, ‘Don’t you go running on that Red Dog road.’ But oh, I did.” Gypsies, faith-healers, moonshiners, and snake handlers weave through Drema’s childhood in 1940s Appalachia after Drema’s father is killed in the coal mines, her mother goes off to work as a Rosie the Riveter, and she is left in the care of devout Pentecostal grandparents. What follows is a spitfire of a memoir that reads like a novel with intrigue, sweeping emotion, and indisputable charm. Drema’s coming of age is colored by tent revivals with Grandpa, jitterbug lessons, and traveling carnivals, and though it all, she serves witness to a multi-generational family of saints and sinners whose lives defy the stereotypes. Just as she defies her own. Running On Red Dog Road is proof that truth is stranger than fiction, especially when it comes to life and faith in an Appalachian childhood.