Welcome back to Book Break! It is time to show some puppy love. Last week on Book Break we made a
video on books for cat people, and now dog lovers, it is your turn. Dog lovers, I am one of you.
I have my little dog Hippo sitting right next to me. I was hoping she would be in the video but
she's hiding. Hopefully she'll get less camera shy in a moment and will come out,
but for now let's start without her. I have got a pile here of books that dog lovers will adore.
She's come out! She's come out of hiding! This is Hippo. So starting with this absolutely gorgeous
anthology of classic dog stories. There are so many famous writers in here bringing beloved
dogs to life: dogs that make you laugh, dogs that save the day, loyal dogs who are always by your
side. It's the perfect collection for any dog lover. So we've got stories in here from writers
from Mark Twain to Virginia Woolf to Jerome K Jerome and just every kind of dog. Next I've
got this incredible book How Stella Learnt to Talk by Christina Hunger. So this is the
absolutely amazing story of how Christina Hunger, who is a speech therapist,
used some of the methods that she uses in her work to help her dog better communicate with her and
to help her understand her dog's needs better. So she uses buttons that she's programmed with
her voice saying different words so that she can enjoy this even closer relationship with her dog.
You can check them out on INstagram at @hungerforwords and see Stella the dog in
action. It is absolutely amazing, I fully intend to teach Hippo how to do it because this book does
include some tips on how you can use this method with your own dog. I actually have my
favourite thing I own here, my personalised proof copy How Hippo Learnt to Talk. So watch
this space because Hippo is going to be the world's next greatest talking dog.
Kika and Me by Amit Patel is the incredible story of what happened after a rare condition caused
Amit Patel who was working as a trauma doctor to suddenly lose his sight within 36 hours. So an
absolutely terrifying experience that forced him to completely relearn the way that he interacts
with the world. And this was a completely isolating, terrifying experience for him.
He became afraid to leave the house on his own at the beginning - until he met Kika the guide dog.
So this is a really heartwarming story, a really interesting story about the unique bond between a
guide dog and their owner, the process of training a guide dog, and that bonding between the guide
dog and the owner, and just the story of how Kika gave Amit a whole new lease of life. Now dogs
often get called man's best friend so if you want a story of a dog being woman's best friend, read
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. This is the story of a woman who suddenly inherits an unwanted dog that
she never asked for after the unexpected death of her longtime friend and mentor by suicide. So
it's about grief and loss but it's also about this incredible bond between woman and dog.
The dog also going through the grief of losing its master. A Dog's Purpose by W Bruce Cameron
is the book behind the movie you may have seen with Dennis Quaid. This actually follows a dog
over the course of several lives, so we actually see this dog being reborn as a new puppy time and
time again and always forming these incredible emotional bonds with the humans in its life.
So it's a funny book, it's a really sweet book, it's essentially a book that asks the question
of why are we here? Another movie that you may not have known was based on a book is 101 Dalmatians.
That was actually based on a book written by Dodie Smith, the author of I Capture the Castle. So the
101 Dalmatians was a children's book from the 50s. A lot of the details were changed in the Disney
adaptations but the story is the one you know and love: a family of dalmatian puppies are kidnapped
by the terrifying Cruella DeVil. And in the book for even younger children is Kamik, an Inuit Dog
Story. So this is about a young boy called Jake who gets a puppy but finds that training it isn't
as easy as he had hoped. So he pays a visit to his grandfather who helps him train the dog to become
a sled dog, and also teaches him about the role and history of dogs in Inuit culture. And then
a book for all ages: The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. You may know this one as the
movie Homeward Bound. So it's about two dogs and a cat who go on an incredible 300 mile journey
through the Canadian wilderness to find their way home and to be reunited with their owners,
so it's a very sweet story. One of the two dogs is a bull terrier like Hippo here! Come on. You want
a treat for being so good? Come on, go get it. Good girl. Grayfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson
is the adorable heartbreaking story about a tiny dog with a big heart who stayed loyal to his owner
his whole life and beyond. So it's based on a true story about a dog who guarded his owner's grave
for 14 years after he died. You better do that for me Hippo. Then I've got James Herriot's Dog
Stories. So James Herriot is the beloved vet whose memoirs inspired the TV show All Things Great and
Small. And this book is a collection of all of his best stories about dogs. James Herriot is such a
wonderful storyteller with such a great sense of humour, and all of these stories just make you
care about each and every one of these dogs as much as you can tell that he himself did. I bet
you would have been his favourite. Off the Leash is a hilarious collection of cartoons by Rupert
Fawcett all about the inner lives of dogs. You're bound to have seen some of these on social media,
they are so relatable and so perfectly capture the experience of being a dog owner and wondering
what is going on inside your dog's head. And then finally a bit of a bizarre one. Flush by Virginia
Woolf. So this is a Virginia Woolf book that I had actually never heard of before researching
this video, but it is her biography of Flush, who was Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker
spaniel. So in the book we see Flush having to deal with horrid maids, other dogs bullying him,
even robbers at one point. In the margins it's a biography of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning
but Flush really takes centre stage. So if you're wondering what to watch next, apparently
dog people are more likely to be extroverts than introverts, and we do have a whole video on books
that we recommend for extroverts, so you might find your next great recommendation in there. In
the meantime do let us know in the comments your personal favourite dog stories. See you next time!