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The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs
Only The New Yorker could fetch such an unbelievable roster of talent on the subject of man’s best friend.
This copious collection, beautifully illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. The roster of contributors includes John Cheever, Susan Orlean, Roddy Doyle, Ian Frazier, Arthur Miller, John Updike, Roald Dahl, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Alexandra Fuller, Jerome Groopman, Jeffrey Toobin, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ogden Nash, Donald Barthelme, Jonathan Lethem, Mark Strand, Anne Sexton, and Cathleen Schine. Complete with a Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell and a new essay by Adam Gopnik on the immortal canines of James Thurber, this gorgeous keepsake is a gift to dog lovers everywhere from the greatest magazine in the world.
This copious collection, beautifully illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. The roster of contributors includes John Cheever, Susan Orlean, Roddy Doyle, Ian Frazier, Arthur Miller, John Updike, Roald Dahl, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Alexandra Fuller, Jerome Groopman, Jeffrey Toobin, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ogden Nash, Donald Barthelme, Jonathan Lethem, Mark Strand, Anne Sexton, and Cathleen Schine. Complete with a Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell and a new essay by Adam Gopnik on the immortal canines of James Thurber, this gorgeous keepsake is a gift to dog lovers everywhere from the greatest magazine in the world.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published October 30, 2012
About the author
The New Yorker
135 books167 followersThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published forty-seven times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 25, 2014
A book full of stories about dogs?? How could I turn it down? I loved this book (except for the size, it was kind of ungainly).
The stories range from the 1910s to the 2000s. Some are fiction, some are essays and nonfiction. Interspersed through the book are little poems, artwork, and snippets.
All in common is the dog and its importance to man. Insight into a dog's character and ours along with it. I loved it.
The stories range from the 1910s to the 2000s. Some are fiction, some are essays and nonfiction. Interspersed through the book are little poems, artwork, and snippets.
All in common is the dog and its importance to man. Insight into a dog's character and ours along with it. I loved it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2021
This coffee table book was a xmas 'stocking' gift one year - I usually find a secondhand book or two left from Santa. It is a selection of dog stories and dog articles taken from The New Yorker's Archives. A disciplined reader, I read the book cover to cover but only a few of the stories did I really like. I was introduced to James Thurber's doggy illustrations which are a pleasure. His story "Snapshot of a Dog" about a bull terrier Rex was my favourite - he captures the character of that dog's stubbornness and satisfaction with himself when he drags home a new prize so well! "Dog Story" by Adam Gopnik about their family's pet havanese living in their New York apartment was also one I had to read aloud to share with the other dog lovers in my family. The havanese was bought reluctantly by the parents because of their daughter's persistence and quickly becomes a full member of the family, while still reminding her humans that she is a dog, with her inexplicable doggy fits. Those moments of craziness, when dogs are dogs make owners smile.
June 16, 2013
A beautiful book, as New Yorker would do. The introduction from Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favorite authors, decries the lack of space for dogs in the city full of dog lovers. He also has two dog stories in here, one being "Whath the Dog Saw". I am not one for fiction, which is most of what we have here, let a lone canine tales, but some stood out: A John Cheever story, the epistoltory one from James Thurber, and a Jeffrey Toobin one about Leonna Helmsley. Always great are the New Yorker cartoons which season this volume along with appropriate reproductions of dog-featuring covers from the magazine.
July 21, 2016
A great coffee table book. Not all of the stories were really about dogs, though all featured dogs as a part of the plot. Great Thurber stories (and cartoons!).
January 9, 2018
If you're a dog lover, you'll find a lot of appealing stories in this book.
July 17, 2014
Ever since humans started throwing scraps to the adventurous wolves beyond the firelight, dogs have been inspiring us and drawing forth from us the full spectrum of our emotional capacity. From enjoyment, love and gratitude to exasperation, fear and cruelty, our reactions to our furry companions have been a mirror of our greatest virtues and our deepest shortcomings. If you're thinking of reading The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs in the hopes of finding one warm and fuzzy, tug-at-the-old-heartstrings story after another, you may be disappointed, though probably not for long. This is The New Yorker, after all, and this collection, compiled and contributed to by The New Yorker Magazine's Malcolm Gladwell, lives up to the reputation for breadth and sophistication we've come to expect.
It is a book to be savored, something to be read in its smallest components and pondered. It is divided into four sections -- Good Dogs, Bad Dogs, Top Dogs and Under Dogs. Each section is introduced by a piece from writer, cartoonist and New Yorker editor James Thurber (1894 - 1961), who was obsessed with dogs both in his writing and his drawings.
Fiction, poetry, journalism and creative nonfiction blend to form a panorama of all aspects of life with "man's best friend." Better yet, the writers are a cross-section of the best of the 20th century -- E.B. White, Ogden Nash, Arthur Miller, Wislawa Szymborska, Ann Sexton, John Updike and T.C. Boyle to name a few.
You'll learn about working dogs, and how the training of police dogs and guide dogs diverged. You'll encounter the lingo of dog fanciers. I grew up with a beagle, and my artistic side would have been enriched by the knowledge that she wasn't wagging her tail; she was "feathering her stern." She wasn't barking; she was "giving voice" or "opening."
Then, there's the perplexity that has surrounded the study of the canine's olfactory talents. Dogs, you will learn, can find cell phones in buckets of water.
Block quote
A good dog is a natural super-soldier: strong yet acrobatic, fierce yet obedient. It can leap higher than most men, and run twice as fast. Its eyes are equipped for night vision, its ears for supersonic hearing, its mouth for subduing the most fractious prey. But its true glory is its nose. In the 1970s, researchers found that dogs could detect even a few particles per million of a substance; in the nineties, more subtle instruments lowered the threshold to particles per billion; the most recent tests have brought it down to particles per trillion.
"It's a little disheartening, really," Paul Waggoner, a behavioral scientist at the Canine Detection Research Institute, at Auburn University, in Alabama, told me. "I spent a good six years of my life chasing this idea, only to find that it was all about the limitations of my equipment." ("Beware of the Dogs" Burkhard Bilger 34)
Block quote end
One of my favorite articles tackles the question of how dogs came to be domesticated in the first place. Did humans capture and breed wolf cubs, as some believe? Or, was it the proto-dog's idea to hang out with humans? The question springs from a father's story of coming to terms with his daughter's irrepressible desire for a Havanese puppy.
Block quote
It wasn't cub-snatching on the part of humans, but breaking and entering on the part of wolves that gave us dogs. "Hey, you be ferocious and eat them when you can catch them," the proto-dogs said, in evolutionary effect, to their wolf siblings. "We'll just do what they like and have them feed us. Dignity? It's a small price to pay for free food. Check with you in ten thousand years and we'll see who's had more kids." (Estimated planetary dog population: one billion. Estimated planetary wild wolf population: three hundred thousand.) ("Dog Story" by Adam Gopnik 11)
Block quote end
And, then there are the cartoons. A dog walking on a leash says to a dog holding his own leash, "So, how long have you been self-employed?" A dog looking at a menu in a restaurant says to the waiter, "Is the homework fresh?"
In "A Note on Thurber's Dogs, Adam Gopnik relates a Buddhist-like train of one question morphing into another.
Block quote
Those of us who care about dogs--and The New Yorker-- ask a similar straightforward-seeming question that also provokes several trick turns. For us, the question "Why did James Thurber always draw dogs?" really means something like "Why do dogs matter for writers?" or even "What draws writers to any of their strange obsessive subjects?" (Which is another way of asking, "What is the way?") (381).
Block quote end
It is a book to be savored, something to be read in its smallest components and pondered. It is divided into four sections -- Good Dogs, Bad Dogs, Top Dogs and Under Dogs. Each section is introduced by a piece from writer, cartoonist and New Yorker editor James Thurber (1894 - 1961), who was obsessed with dogs both in his writing and his drawings.
Fiction, poetry, journalism and creative nonfiction blend to form a panorama of all aspects of life with "man's best friend." Better yet, the writers are a cross-section of the best of the 20th century -- E.B. White, Ogden Nash, Arthur Miller, Wislawa Szymborska, Ann Sexton, John Updike and T.C. Boyle to name a few.
You'll learn about working dogs, and how the training of police dogs and guide dogs diverged. You'll encounter the lingo of dog fanciers. I grew up with a beagle, and my artistic side would have been enriched by the knowledge that she wasn't wagging her tail; she was "feathering her stern." She wasn't barking; she was "giving voice" or "opening."
Then, there's the perplexity that has surrounded the study of the canine's olfactory talents. Dogs, you will learn, can find cell phones in buckets of water.
Block quote
A good dog is a natural super-soldier: strong yet acrobatic, fierce yet obedient. It can leap higher than most men, and run twice as fast. Its eyes are equipped for night vision, its ears for supersonic hearing, its mouth for subduing the most fractious prey. But its true glory is its nose. In the 1970s, researchers found that dogs could detect even a few particles per million of a substance; in the nineties, more subtle instruments lowered the threshold to particles per billion; the most recent tests have brought it down to particles per trillion.
"It's a little disheartening, really," Paul Waggoner, a behavioral scientist at the Canine Detection Research Institute, at Auburn University, in Alabama, told me. "I spent a good six years of my life chasing this idea, only to find that it was all about the limitations of my equipment." ("Beware of the Dogs" Burkhard Bilger 34)
Block quote end
One of my favorite articles tackles the question of how dogs came to be domesticated in the first place. Did humans capture and breed wolf cubs, as some believe? Or, was it the proto-dog's idea to hang out with humans? The question springs from a father's story of coming to terms with his daughter's irrepressible desire for a Havanese puppy.
Block quote
It wasn't cub-snatching on the part of humans, but breaking and entering on the part of wolves that gave us dogs. "Hey, you be ferocious and eat them when you can catch them," the proto-dogs said, in evolutionary effect, to their wolf siblings. "We'll just do what they like and have them feed us. Dignity? It's a small price to pay for free food. Check with you in ten thousand years and we'll see who's had more kids." (Estimated planetary dog population: one billion. Estimated planetary wild wolf population: three hundred thousand.) ("Dog Story" by Adam Gopnik 11)
Block quote end
And, then there are the cartoons. A dog walking on a leash says to a dog holding his own leash, "So, how long have you been self-employed?" A dog looking at a menu in a restaurant says to the waiter, "Is the homework fresh?"
In "A Note on Thurber's Dogs, Adam Gopnik relates a Buddhist-like train of one question morphing into another.
Block quote
Those of us who care about dogs--and The New Yorker-- ask a similar straightforward-seeming question that also provokes several trick turns. For us, the question "Why did James Thurber always draw dogs?" really means something like "Why do dogs matter for writers?" or even "What draws writers to any of their strange obsessive subjects?" (Which is another way of asking, "What is the way?") (381).
Block quote end
April 8, 2014
Ever since humans started throwing scraps to the adventurous wolves beyond the firelight, dogs have been inspiring us and drawing forth from us the full spectrum of our emotional capacity. From enjoyment, love and gratitude to exasperation, fear and cruelty, our reactions to our furry companions have been a mirror of our greatest virtues and our deepest shortcomings. If you're thinking of reading The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs in the hopes of finding one warm and fuzzy, tug-at-the-old-heartstrings story after another, you may be disappointed, though probably not for long. This is The New Yorker, after all, and this collection, compiled and contributed to by The New Yorker Magazine's Malcolm Gladwell, lives up to the reputation for breadth and sophistication we've come to expect.
It is a book to be savored, something to be read in its smallest components and pondered. It is divided into four sections -- Good Dogs, Bad Dogs, Top Dogs and Under Dogs. Each section is introduced by a piece from writer, cartoonist and New Yorker editor James Thurber (1894 - 1961), who was obsessed with dogs both in his writing and his drawings.
Fiction, poetry, journalism and creative nonfiction blend to form a panorama of all aspects of life with "man's best friend." Better yet, the writers are a cross-section of the best of the 20th century -- E.B. White, Ogden Nash, Arthur Miller, Wislawa Szymborska, Ann Sexton, John Updike and T.C. Boyle to name a few.
You'll learn about working dogs, and how the training of police dogs and guide dogs diverged. You'll encounter the lingo of dog fanciers. I grew up with a beagle, and my artistic side would have been enriched by the knowledge that she wasn't wagging her tail; she was "feathering her stern." She wasn't barking; she was "giving voice" or "opening."
Then, there's the perplexity that has surrounded the study of the canine's olfactory talents. Dogs, you will learn, can find cell phones in buckets of water.
Block quote
A good dog is a natural super-soldier: strong yet acrobatic, fierce yet obedient. It can leap higher than most men, and run twice as fast. Its eyes are equipped for night vision, its ears for supersonic hearing, its mouth for subduing the most fractious prey. But its true glory is its nose. In the 1970s, researchers found that dogs could detect even a few particles per million of a substance; in the nineties, more subtle instruments lowered the threshold to particles per billion; the most recent tests have brought it down to particles per trillion.
"It's a little disheartening, really," Paul Waggoner, a behavioral scientist at the Canine Detection Research Institute, at Auburn University, in Alabama, told me. "I spent a good six years of my life chasing this idea, only to find that it was all about the limitations of my equipment." ("Beware of the Dogs" Burkhard Bilger 34)
Block quote end
One of my favorite articles tackles the question of how dogs came to be domesticated in the first place. Did humans capture and breed wolf cubs, as some believe? Or, was it the proto-dog's idea to hang out with humans? The question springs from a father's story of coming to terms with his daughter's irrepressible desire for a Havanese puppy.
Block quote
It wasn't cub-snatching on the part of humans, but breaking and entering on the part of wolves that gave us dogs. "Hey, you be ferocious and eat them when you can catch them," the proto-dogs said, in evolutionary effect, to their wolf siblings. "We'll just do what they like and have them feed us. Dignity? It's a small price to pay for free food. Check with you in ten thousand years and we'll see who's had more kids." (Estimated planetary dog population: one billion. Estimated planetary wild wolf population: three hundred thousand.) ("Dog Story" by Adam Gopnik 11)
Block quote end
And, then there are the cartoons. A dog walking on a leash says to a dog holding his own leash, "So, how long have you been self-employed?" A dog looking at a menu in a restaurant says to the waiter, "Is the homework fresh?"
In "A Note on Thurber's Dogs, Adam Gopnik relates a Buddhist-like train of one question morphing into another.
Block quote
Those of us who care about dogs--and The New Yorker-- ask a similar straightforward-seeming question that also provokes several trick turns. For us, the question "Why did James Thurber always draw dogs?" really means something like "Why do dogs matter for writers?" or even "What draws writers to any of their strange obsessive subjects?" (Which is another way of asking, "What is the way?") (381).
Block quote end
It is a book to be savored, something to be read in its smallest components and pondered. It is divided into four sections -- Good Dogs, Bad Dogs, Top Dogs and Under Dogs. Each section is introduced by a piece from writer, cartoonist and New Yorker editor James Thurber (1894 - 1961), who was obsessed with dogs both in his writing and his drawings.
Fiction, poetry, journalism and creative nonfiction blend to form a panorama of all aspects of life with "man's best friend." Better yet, the writers are a cross-section of the best of the 20th century -- E.B. White, Ogden Nash, Arthur Miller, Wislawa Szymborska, Ann Sexton, John Updike and T.C. Boyle to name a few.
You'll learn about working dogs, and how the training of police dogs and guide dogs diverged. You'll encounter the lingo of dog fanciers. I grew up with a beagle, and my artistic side would have been enriched by the knowledge that she wasn't wagging her tail; she was "feathering her stern." She wasn't barking; she was "giving voice" or "opening."
Then, there's the perplexity that has surrounded the study of the canine's olfactory talents. Dogs, you will learn, can find cell phones in buckets of water.
Block quote
A good dog is a natural super-soldier: strong yet acrobatic, fierce yet obedient. It can leap higher than most men, and run twice as fast. Its eyes are equipped for night vision, its ears for supersonic hearing, its mouth for subduing the most fractious prey. But its true glory is its nose. In the 1970s, researchers found that dogs could detect even a few particles per million of a substance; in the nineties, more subtle instruments lowered the threshold to particles per billion; the most recent tests have brought it down to particles per trillion.
"It's a little disheartening, really," Paul Waggoner, a behavioral scientist at the Canine Detection Research Institute, at Auburn University, in Alabama, told me. "I spent a good six years of my life chasing this idea, only to find that it was all about the limitations of my equipment." ("Beware of the Dogs" Burkhard Bilger 34)
Block quote end
One of my favorite articles tackles the question of how dogs came to be domesticated in the first place. Did humans capture and breed wolf cubs, as some believe? Or, was it the proto-dog's idea to hang out with humans? The question springs from a father's story of coming to terms with his daughter's irrepressible desire for a Havanese puppy.
Block quote
It wasn't cub-snatching on the part of humans, but breaking and entering on the part of wolves that gave us dogs. "Hey, you be ferocious and eat them when you can catch them," the proto-dogs said, in evolutionary effect, to their wolf siblings. "We'll just do what they like and have them feed us. Dignity? It's a small price to pay for free food. Check with you in ten thousand years and we'll see who's had more kids." (Estimated planetary dog population: one billion. Estimated planetary wild wolf population: three hundred thousand.) ("Dog Story" by Adam Gopnik 11)
Block quote end
And, then there are the cartoons. A dog walking on a leash says to a dog holding his own leash, "So, how long have you been self-employed?" A dog looking at a menu in a restaurant says to the waiter, "Is the homework fresh?"
In "A Note on Thurber's Dogs, Adam Gopnik relates a Buddhist-like train of one question morphing into another.
Block quote
Those of us who care about dogs--and The New Yorker-- ask a similar straightforward-seeming question that also provokes several trick turns. For us, the question "Why did James Thurber always draw dogs?" really means something like "Why do dogs matter for writers?" or even "What draws writers to any of their strange obsessive subjects?" (Which is another way of asking, "What is the way?") (381).
Block quote end
January 17, 2014
An enjoyable collection of cartoons, short stories and articles published by the New Yorker magazine. I believe the oldest item in the book is from the 1930's. There are short stories by James Thurber (and many of his cartoons), an article on Cesar Milan, articles from non-dog lovers, stories by people who adore dogs.
It's a very enjoyable collection.
It's a very enjoyable collection.
January 22, 2015
I love books and I love dogs - so I guess it's a no-brainer that I'm going to love a book about dogs. This was a gorgeous book filled with cartoons, stories (both fiction and non-fiction) and reproductions of New Yorker covers that featured dogs. The book was more non-fiction than fiction, which surprised me. But all of the stories were top-notch and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book.
September 7, 2013
Sadly, I got bored reading this compilation of dog-related writings and stopped reading before I even got 25% of the way through. I skimmed the rest of the book and found very little of interest. This was sad to me because I LOVE dogs! And I love The New Yorker!
September 20, 2014
A delightful compilation of the New Yorker's best dog-related prose, poetry, fiction, cartoons, and covers from 1925 to the present. A wonderful gift from my parents-in-law and a perfect, broad, and engaging discussion on American dogs.
October 12, 2014
I'm taking my time, jumping around with this book. Believe this is best way to enjoy fully the work of some of my favorite writers and illustrators on subject of man's best friend.
If you are fan of The New Yorker, I highly recommend My Years With Ross, by James Thurber.
If you are fan of The New Yorker, I highly recommend My Years With Ross, by James Thurber.
December 17, 2016
A collection of stories, poems, and cartoons all related to man's best friend. Like any collection, some are better than others and I learned some interesting tidbits about drug sniffing dogs and read a couple lousy short stories I could have skipped. Good for any dog lover.
December 20, 2012
Thought this was just a big ol' book of New Yorker cartoons. It's not; having a hard time reading through all these words. Still good stuff though.
March 6, 2014
great coffee table read if you are a dog lover. funny cartoons and anecdotes
April 3, 2015
I adore dogs, but unfortunately most of the pieces in this collection were somewhat boring. Sigh.
June 4, 2018
I liked the story about the New York police dogs. The book is too big to read it all!
August 28, 2019
Loved. the. book. It is a complete testament to good writing about those delightful beings we call dogs.
December 15, 2019
Some of the stories show their age through the language used but overall a decent collection of stories if you are a fan of the New Yorker.
July 14, 2014
Excellent collection of both fiction and non-fiction, of which I had only read the one James Thurber story before.
April 16, 2013
Art, cartoons and short stories, about dogs, from the New Yorker. Doesn't get any better.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews