My Dog Tulip

Description

J.R. Ackerley's German shepherd Tulip was skittish, possessive, and wild, but he loved her deeply. This clear-eyed and wondering, humorous and moving book, described by Christopher Isherwood as one of the "greatest masterpieces of animal literature," is her biography, a work of faultless and respectful observation that transcends the seeming modesty of its subject. In telling the story of his beloved Tulip, Ackerley has written a book that is a profound and subtle meditation on the strangeness abiding at the heart of all relationships.

J. R. Ackerley (1896-1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine The Listener. His works include three memoirs, Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip, and My Father and Myself, and a novel, We Think the World of You (all available as New York Review Books). Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's most recent books are The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons from the Natural World and A Million Years with You: A Memoir of Life Observed.

Wryly comic and strangely moving. Daily Mail A beautiful evocation of the relationship between dog and owner, which doesn't lapse into the sentimentality so common in the books that people write about their pets. Sunday Telegraph Best animal book ever, by a literary agent bonkers about his Alsatian bitch. Evening Standard