In this poignant, funny, and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs—a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family.

There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things.

What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?

The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed.

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family.

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.

If you’ve ever owned a dog that wasn’t quite perfect, that had issues that you struggled to overcome, a dog you loved, anyway, then this is the book for you. The author brings his dogs to life with every challenge met, but not always won, with every illness that you’re sure will be the end, but magically isn’t. Until it is.

Even though I was reading about someone else’s dogs, I couldn’t help but think of my own, some gone decades, others only a few years. They all were right there with me, as I’m sure Zusak’s still are with him. We love them so much, yet know that we will lose them much too soon.

I laughed at some of the situations that Zusak found himself in with Reuben and Archer. Cried when the inevitable happened. He now has Frosty, but admits that the kind of love that comes with years isn’t there yet. But he knows it will be someday. I know that feeling; that’s what a dog, or a cat, bring to their people. As is so evident in this book, no matter the pain at the end, they’re more than worth it.




( Mount TBR 2025 Book Links 1-20 )

21. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
22. America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War by H.W. Brands
23. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
24. The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
25. A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen
26. Lost and Found by Marilyn Harris
27. Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill
28. Three Wild Dogs by Markus Zusak

Sometimes you have to leave behind everything you know to find the place you truly belong...

Nana the cat is on a road trip. He is not sure where he's going or why, but it means that he gets to sit in the front seat of a silver van with his beloved owner, Satoru. Side by side, they cruise around Japan through the changing seasons, visiting Satoru's old friends. He meets Yoshimine, the brusque and unsentimental farmer for whom cats are just ratters; Sugi and Chikako, the warm-hearted couple who run a pet-friendly B&B; and Kosuke, the mournful husband whose cat-loving wife has just left him. There's even a very special dog who forces Nana to reassess his disdain for the canine species.

But what is the purpose of this road trip? And why is everyone so interested in Nana? Nana does not know and Satoru won't say. But when Nana finally works it out, his small heart will break…


It took a little while for me to get into this book, but once I did I was hooked. Told from Nana’s point of view, it’s an unsentimental telling of his travels. Even his love for his owner is tempered with the way of a cat.

But Nana knows what he wants, and that means staying with Satoru, no matter what he has to do to make that happen. Though he meets people and pets well worth staying with, he must follow his heart.

But why are they on this journey? Why is Satoru trying to get rid of him? It took me a bit to figure that out. The ending broke me heart, just as it did Nana’s, but the book is still very much worth reading. It’s a poignant telling of the love between a pet and his person.

This book was recommended by severina2001, and I am so happy that she did so. So, thanks so much severina2001!




Mount TBR 2022 Book Links


Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

( TBR Book Links 1-55 )

56. Biloxi by Mary Miller
57. Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System by Ian Angus
58. The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel (Translator)

In a remote outpost of Now Zad, in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, Pen Farthing and his troop of young Royal Marines survive frequent engagements with the Taliban and forge links with the local community. Pen's tour of duty will change his life forever, but for entirely unexpected reasons ...

Appalled by the horrors of a local dog fight, he intervenes to free the victims. One of these dogs finds his way into the Marine compound - and into Pen's heart. Soon other strays are being drawn to the sanctuary provided by Pen's makeshift pound, including one young mum who crawls under the compound fence carrying her newborn pups to safety.

But as his tour of duty draws to an end, Pen cannot leave the dogs of Now Zad to their own fates. he begins hatching plans to help them escape to a better life.

This is Pen's gripping account of his time in Now Zad, the friends he made there and the remarkable journey they - and he - undertook. Above all, it is the story of one man's courage and humanity and his fight to make a difference in the most hostile and dangerous environment - one dog at a time.

I’ve read books before where a soldier fights to bring home a dog he adopted in Afghanistan, but never before have I read where a soldier decides to help as many stray dogs as he can. But here, you’re introduced to a soldier who decides to do just that.

It’s an uplifting tale, though not all stories end happily. it’s still a pleasure to be introduced to the many dogs whose lives Penn makes better. Obviously, the entire book can’t be about the dogs. Penn is a soldier, after all. But through it all, his compassion and concern for his charges come through.

Not a lot of good came from this war, but it’s nice to know that something did. For these animals, Farthing is a hero. For me, too.




( TBR Book Links 1-65 )

66. Katherine by Anya Seton
67. The Bear Who Found Christmas by Alan Rodgers
68. The Elves of Cintra (Genesis of Shannara #2) by Terry Brooks
69. One Dog at a Time: Saving the Strays of Helmand by Pen Farthing









Read a Book About Giving - One Dog at a Time: Saving the Strays of Helmand by Pen Farthing