title: Dog Stories (Everyman's Library Pocket Classics Series)
author:  Diana Secker Tesdell 
description: Starred Review. This motley, lovable collection is as varied as the dogs depicted within, from the savage hunters and woeful mutts of Doris Lessing and Anton Chekhov, to Lydia Millet's pampered poodle and Brad Watson's sage seeing eye dog. Tesdell's impressive choices range from traditional tales of loyal, devoted dogs by Kipling, Twain, and others, to Madison Smartt Bell's story of a man gradually becoming a canine. These entries wisely steer clear of sentimentality, nevertheless portraying their subjects with heroism and scrappiness. The ultimate opacity of a dog's mind provokes imaginative writers like Chekhov, Wodehouse, and O. Henry to project themselves into their pets. Most of these dog narrators manage prose that is beautiful, elegant, and painfully accurate about the failings of their human owners. Jonathan Lethem, James Thurber, Tobias Wolff, Penelope Lively, and many other literary luminaries make appearances here. As Ray Bradbury writes, and as this anthology wonderfully proves, dogs "collect and deliver the time and texture of worlds" in their fur.
zlib_text: Other short stories from _Beyond the Stars_ collection, also available as
  e-books:
  
    
  
  [ _The Star Dogs_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103323) by
  Roddy Doyle, illustrated by Steve Simpson
  
  [ _The Hero of
  Drumree_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103330) by Derek
  Landy, illustrated by Alan Clarke
  
  [ _The Brockets Get a
  Dog_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103347) by John Boyne,
  illustrated by Paul Howard
  
  [ _How to Help Your
  Grandda_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103354) by Judi
  Curtin, illustrated by Chris Judge
  
  [ _The Lookout_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103361) by
  Eoin Colfer, illustrated by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick
  
  [ _The King of the
  Birds_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103385) Michael Scott,
  illustrated by Chris Haughton
  
  [ _The Battle of the Ice
  Queen_](http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780008103392) by Gordon
  Snell, illustrated by Michael Emberley
  
  [_The Last 