Book Review: The Last Dog on Earth by Adrian J. Walker

What the publisher says: “Every dog has its day…

And for Lineker, a happy go lucky mongrel from Peckham, the day the world ends is his: finally a chance to prove to his owner just how loyal he can be.

Reg, an agoraphobic writer with an obsession for nineties football, plans to wait out the impending doom in his second floor flat, hiding himself away from the riots outside.

But when an abandoned orphan shows up in the stairwell of their building, Reg and Lineker must brave the outside in order to save not only the child, but themselves…”

What I say: As a lover of post-apocalyptic books, I very much enjoyed this novel. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic London, where Reg, a writer, lives with his dog. He knows there are other people in flats further away (he keeps track of them; there are ten window spread out over the city that lit up every night) but he is not interested in meeting anyone else. He likes to keep to himself. But then he finds a young girl at his door, who refuses to go away. Reg decides to bring her to wherever she’s supposed to be and, once he gets outside the familiar streets, finds the remnants of London to be very different from what he expected. He is forced to deal with other people and his quest to drop the girl off turns into something bigger.

Besides Reg, there is another narrator, who is at Reg’s side for most of the time but also has his own adventures. This is Reg’s dog Lineker. He’s very wise for a dog and he philosophizes like a real human. I loved how he interprets the smells that he comes across; these are much more important to him than sound or vision. However, while he was generally telling an entertaining story, as the story progressed, I found him less believable as a dog. He knew too much; he was too clever.

In all, this was an entertaining story about a man and his dog in a world where there are many more men and dogs than either of them knew.

I received this book as an e-book (ARC) from the publishers (Del Rey) via Netgalley.

 

Read: News of the World by Paulette Jiles

I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher for review.

I previously read Lighthouse Island by the same author, which I loved. That is a very different story. Whereas News of the World is set in the 19th century, Lighthouse Island is a dystopian novel set in a near future. I loved both novels equally. Jiles is a great writer who knows how to tell a good story.

A seventy-year-old man, Captain Kidd, a reader of news who travels around the country to earn a living, is asked to deliver a ten-year-old girl with her aunt and uncle, 400 miles away, after she had been stolen, and then rescued, from the indians. The girl, Johanna, feels indian, after having spent four years there, and will not comply to the rules of civilized society. Their journey is full of adventure and dangers.

The story is totally captivating. I enjoyed reading this so much! The slowly evolving relationship between the captain and Johanna is interesting to follow. We are told the story through the eyes of Captain Kidd and so we have no first-person knowledge of what is going on inside Johanna, but from the way she acts it becomes clear that she becomes attached to the old man. And the old man, who initially thought of her as a burden, becomes attached to her as well, and starts to doubt whether Johanna is really better off with her uncle and aunt.

A beautiful story about an old man and a young girl, traveling in a hostile world.

The publisher says: “It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.”

 

Read: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

I got an e-copy of this book from the publishers for review (via Edelweiss).

My opinion: Written as well as always, but not half as good as State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (which I loved). The story follows two families who intermarry (i.e., the mother of one family marries the father of the other family) and out of necessity need to deal with each other. We follow some of the family members in the next five decades. There’s also a secret that involves the children of both families. This is slowly revealed during the story.

This novel reminded me a lot of Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread which also follows a family throughout the years – and there’s a secret too. Because of the jumps through time and the different characters that were followed – rather than sticking with one or two – this story felt a little disjointed. I read it with interest but I was never hooked.

The publisher says: “One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.”

Read: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The publisher says: “Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader’s wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel – the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself.”

I thought: Beautifully written story of two sisters and their descendants, spanning two centuries. Because every chapter is about a new generation, it’s more a collection of short stories than a novel. Of course, the stories of each line of descendants does continue over the generations, but it did feel a bit disjointed.

The descendants of one of the sisters stays in Africa while the other line is sold into slavery and ends up in America. The stories seem very realistic. Interestingly, the descendants who stayed in Africa are not necessarily better off than those sold into slavery.