Thurber and my Funny Bone When I was still a young girl, living with my parents, I was a great dog lover. My father was as much of bookworm as I and we had many books. We also shared a liking for humour as genre. I remember Thurber’s Dogs with great delight.
Dog Tales Not only is the book filled with the funniest stories of Thurber’s dogs but it is also illustrated most charmingly and calculated to draw a smile.
The Classic Collection of the Master’s Dogs With some 23 short accounts of dogs he has had or who owned him, Thurber adds hilarity to the pages with his marvellous sketches of dogs.
Contents These include and will also make you grin: Foreword, with Figures; The Hound and the Hare; An Introduction; How to Name a Dog; A Preface to Dogs; The White Rabbit Caper; Canines in the Cellar; Dogs, Women and Men; A Snapshot of Rex; The Dog That Bit People; Josephine Has Her Day; The Scotty Who Knew Too Much; The Patient Bloodhound; The Hound and the Hat; Collie in the Driveway; The Departure of Emma Inch; The Thin Red Leash; In Defense of Dogs, Even, After a Fashion, Jeannie; Look Homeward, Jeannie; Blaze in the Sky; A Portfolio; The Monroes find a Terminal; And So to Medve; Memorial; Cristabel: part one; Christabel: part two; The Hound and the Gun; The Cockeyed Spaniard; Lo, Hear the Gentle Bloodhound! A Glimpse of the Flatpaws; The Hound and the Bug.
Cartoon Strips Of the above, 6 are pure drawings, narrating a simple sequence in a dog’s life.
The Dog That Bit People will remain my favourite as I had two dogs that had this habit. In reality, it is traumatic for the people who get bitten and for the dog owners but every bad situation needs to be viewed with humour.
A big, burly, choleric dog, he always acted as if he thought I wasn’t one of the family. There was a slight advantage in being one of the family, for he didn’t bite the family as often as he bit strangers. Still, in the years that we had him he bit everybody but mother, and he
made a pass at her once but missed*.
The White Rabbit Caper is written like a detective novel!
Fred Fox was pouring himself a slug of rye when the door of his office opened and in hopped old Mrs. Rabbit. She was a white rabbit with pink eyes, and she wore a shawl on her head, and gold-rimmed spectacles.
I heartily recommend that you find this book somehow or the other if you are a dog fan or love humour. It is hard to find and expensive now but perhaps you can borrow it.
In any case, I hope we can protest that good books should be made free or cheaper after the author’s death as descendents do not have the right to deprive us of good books.
For the moment, if lucky, you may find some online!