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All about Dogs
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Sign up todayMy Dog Tulip
Narrator
Geoffrey Howard
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
4 hours 37 minutes
Language
English
Distinguished British man of letters J. R. Ackerley hardly thought himself a dog lover when, well into middle age, he came into possession of a German shepherd named Tulip. To his surprise, she turned out to be the love of his life, the "ideal friend" he had been seeking in vain for years.
My Dog Tulip is a bittersweet retrospective account of their sixteen-year companionship, as well as a profound and subtle meditation on the strangeness that lies at the heart of all relationships. In vivid and sometimes startling detail, Ackerley tells of Tulip's often erratic behavior and very canine tastes and of his own fumbling but determined efforts to ensure for her an existence of perfect happiness.
My Dog Tulip has been adapted to screen as a major animated feature film with a cast that includes Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave, and Isabella Rossellini.
J. R. Ackerley (1896–1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine the Listener. A respected mentor to such younger writers as Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden, he was also a longtime friend and literary associate of E. M. Forster. His works include three memoirs—Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip, and My Father and Myself—and a novel, We Think the World of You.
Geoffrey Howard (a.k.a. Ralph Cosham) (1936–2014) was a British journalist who changed careers to become a narrator and screen and stage actor. He performed in more than one hundred professional theatrical roles. His audiobook narrations were named “Audio Best of the Year” by Publishers Weekly, and he won seven AudioFile Earphones Awards, and in 2013 he won the coveted Audie Award for Best Mystery Narration for his reading of Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery.
Reviews
“The love story of the year.”
“Sublime and amusing.”
“In its own quirky fashion, Ackerley’s wry valentine to his beloved pet is as much a book about the difficult art of living and loving as it is a dog story.”
“One of the bona fide dog-lit classics.”
“[Ackerley] aimed to shock, and his success was heightened by the soap-bubble sparkle and lightness of his prose.”
“One of the greatest books ever written by anybody in the world.”
“By far the best ‘animal book’ I’ve ever read.”
“This is one of the greatest masterpieces of animal literature.”
“This is the funniest, most poignant, and, consider yourself warned, preeminently disgusting of all the great dog books. First published in 1965, it portrays in the most affectionate terms what the dogless tend to consider outrageous transgressions.”
“[Ackerley’s] descriptions of Tulip have the power to shake up our sentimental preconceptions about dogs, and dogs’ relationships to men; and they twinkle with the electricity of felt compassion and love.”
“Narrator Ralph Cosham makes this sublime memoir even grander with his precise yet warm and humane delivery…Cosham does each human and canine justice. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
“I love this book because it shows respect and profound understanding of the animal on its own terms.”
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