By Paul Auster, Picador , April 28, 2009, 978-0312428945

Paul Auster’s books always fascinate me. I don’t read many fictional books. His are a world apart. They are short and complex without being overly detailed, which turns me off. He takes interesting viewpoints: this one is a dog’s eye view of the world and his masters. Here’s but a snippet of how the Mr. Bones (aka. Sparky) speaks with his readers:

[k955] What he needed was to establish some general principles, firm rules of conduct that he could fall back on in moments of crisis. Based on his recent experience, it wasn’t hard to come up with the first item on the list. No more kids. No more people under sixteen, especially boy people. They lacked compassion, and once you stripped that quality from a two-leg’s soul, he was no better than a mad dog.