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<\/a><\/p>\nThe title is “111 Dogs and their Strange Stories.” In Italian. The book made its way here from Rome, and while the packaging barely survived (one more tiny tear and the book would have fallen from the envelope and disappeared forever into postal oblivion), the contents are pristine<\/p>\n
The reason I have it is because my St. Guinefort<\/a> appears inside. I wrote about that last June<\/a><\/p>\n The crop is unfortunate, but since each story is illustrated by a full-bleed photo or piece of art, it was the best they could do to be consistent.<\/p>\n I can almost<\/em> read the story, too, with my patchy old Italiano<\/em>. Having 111 dog stories might inspire me to see what I can pull out of memory and online dictionaries.<\/p>\n On other topics …<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n Dave Barry can be pretty hit-and-miss, but his 2017 year-end review<\/a> is almost entirely really funny.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n PETA is so despicable. Let us count the ways<\/a> (in language NSFW).<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n Oh damn. The great mystery writer Sue Grafton has died<\/a>. There will be no “Z” in the Kinsey Millhone alphabet series<\/a> — novels I’ve loved since A is for Alibi<\/em> and B is for Burglar<\/em>, right down to the recent Y is for Yesterday<\/em><\/a>. <\/p>\n Back around C or D is when a friend told me I just had to read the tales of this private investigator who reminded her so much of … gulp, me. (It’s true or was — right down to the single all-purpose black dress dragged out strictly for emergency use. But Kinsey is a much better liar than I could ever be. And I’ve aged while Kinsey did not.)<\/p>\n Grafton never allowed Kinsey to appear in a movie or TV series (even though she must have had offers that could have made her rich) and never let an assistant or a ghost write a word of her books. So as her daughter said, “The alphabet now ends at Y.”<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n