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| A Three Dog Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Abigail Thomas
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy New: $6.05
You Save: $15.95 (73%)
New (5) Used (10) from $5.33
Avg. Customer Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 164697
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 1.1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B00155GE4K
Publication Date: September 5, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A book to read and re-read again!!!! April 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was my first Kindle book and I finished it within a couple days which is good for someone as busy as myself. A Three Dog Life is an easy read in which you find yourself laughing, crying, and unable to put down. I read when I only had minutes left on a lunch break, but a few paragraphs at a time was all I needed to keep pulling me through. It is a great book, and reminds us all of our human condition and how one woman dealt with the hand she was given. Beautiful and I could easily see this as a movie. I rarely read a book twice, but I know I could easily go right back and re-read. There is a lot to say for that! Get this book, read it, you won't be sorry!
A Lovely Book of Elegant Prose April 26, 2008
The first word that comes to my mind when I finished this book is elegant. It is very elegant and lyrical. It is written with a wry sense of self and with gentle humor. I love memoirs if they are well-written and without a sense of whining that a lot of authors tend to do while writing about their lives. This book has no sense of whining nor self-pity. It just is. It happened and it just is.
This is an accounting of a woman who comes onto the street to see her husband lying there with his head literally cracked open. Her life has changed in that instant. Her husband, Rich, had been walking the dog when the dog broke free and went into the heavy traffic. Rich chased him only to be run down by a car. His short-term memory was lost and in the five years after, Thomas writes about various things relating to her relationship with her husband. She writes about grieving. She writes about her dogs and how they've helped her remain sane. She writes about moving to live closer to the long-term facility where Rich lives. She writes poignantly about life, love, grief, acceptance and joy.
This is by far the least depressing memoir I have ever read. It is beautiful, achingly so. I would have never picked up this book if it weren't for my parents who sent it home with me. I have never really heard of it. If you like memoirs, you will love this one. Even if you're not a fan of memoirs, you will still like this one simply because of the elegant essays she has written. And you will find that you relate to them simply because you are human.
4/26/08
Good book March 21, 2008
If you like memoirs you will love this one. I certainly did. The author's style makes very real the feelings she is sharing. Her observations of her life , it's unexpected turn, and her honest reactions to that are not sentimental, rather one's the reader can truly identify with. She alows herself to be honest and vulnerable.
Beautifully written March 18, 2008
Abigal Thomas has a beautiful way of writing that will make you laugh and cry. She is brutally honest about all of the emotions she felt during a difficult and tragic time in her life. I plan to read all of her books.
Took My Breath Away March 17, 2008
A Three Dog Life derives its title from the Australian aborigines who slept with their dogs for warmth; the coldest nights being "three dog nights". Abigail's husband's traumatic brain injury places her in the most difficult time of her life. The warmth and love from her three beloved dogs comfort her, hence her three dog life. This new life is one that she has to build on her own; different from any life she has lived before. Abigail navigates the unchartered waters of dealing with a husband in a nursing home, the guilt, sadness and welcomed freedom of living alone, and embarking on a new life journey with such perceptive insight that it simply took my breath away.
Thomas' writing is sparse, plain, artful and so insightful that I feel that I could read anything about her or her life so long as she wrote it. Her self-awareness and ability to describe her thoughts and feelings is nothing short of brilliant. Most amazing is how she recounts her husband's newly acquired astuteness and his uncanny ability to hone in on exactly what she is thinking or exactly what is going on in her life without any way for him to obtain actual knowledge of these things. Rich's newfound ability is an unexplainable miracle.
Reading this book changed the way that I view those suffering brain damage from a traumatic injury. I no longer see them as less than whole; they are just different - altered- sometimes these changes bring about gifts not previously possessed. Rich's random comments show a gifted ability to describe his condition and a keen sense of self-awareness. Though his short-term memory loss may cause his inability to remember where he is or what he did five minutes ago, he is able to describe how he feels by saying, "I don't know who I am. Pretend you are walking up the street with your friend. You are looking in windows. But right behind you is a man with a huge roller filled with white paint and he is painting over everywhere you have been, erasing everything. He erased your friend. You don't even remember his name."
This book is a gift to everyone who reads it. I will treasure it always and recommend it to everyone I know.
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