(Definitely) The Best Dogs of All Time

Adorable in concept but unsatisfying in execution, Carroll’s debut falls far short of its potential. The premise—profiles of some of the most intriguing dogs, real and fictional, throughout history—is a promising one, but Carroll’s inconsistent approach quickly frustrates. With no rhyme or reason to his haphazard selections, Carroll’s profiles vary from the dashed-off (the Egyptian god Anubis gets a single paragraph, and a Nietzche reference to a dog merits an entry, though Carroll doesn’t seek out other canine references in the philosopher’s works or determine if Nietzsche actually owned a dog) to the banal (Riley, a poodle seen smiling over a birthday cake in a viral 2010 photo). At times, Carroll comes frustratingly close to realizing the book’s potential with entries on animals such as Steinbeck’s poodle, Charley; Buddy, the first seeing-eye dog; and Barry, a famous St. Bernard rescue dog; but substantive entries such as these are overshadowed by trivial digressions about, for instance, the Lazy Panagram Dog (“the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”) and Susan, the first of Queen Elizabeth II’s many corgis. Unfortunately, this book ends up being trite and unremarkable. [em](May) [/em]