Books I Recommend For The Summer

Bad Dog: A Love Story. Martin Kihn is just too talented – I still don’t know how a writer can be that laugh-out-loud funny while chronicling a major life crisis – and his story is just too good to miss. (And of course the soulful pictures of Hola, his lovely Bernese mountain dog, don’t hurt either.)

Kihn and Hola, it would seem, were a match made in heaven – although it took a while for that to become apparent.

Kihn and his wife Gloria were living in Manhattan, pursuing their careers with varying degrees of success – and trying to ignore his drinking problem – when they bought Hola. Gloria hoped for companionship, as she wasn't getting much from her husband. But the dog they picked turned out to be the problem puppy from Hades.

Instead of plugging up the holes in their marriage, her wild behavior became one more source of stress. When she attacked Gloria one day, Gloria decided she’d had enough of the whole scene. She packed her bags, leaving Kihn, now newly sober, alone with a seriously problematic canine.