Books about Retriever from Amazon.com

The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life.

Now with photos and new material

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Price: $7.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Amazon.com Exclusive:
The Darkest Ice Cream of the Year by Dean Koontz

I once said writing a novel is sometimes like making love and sometimes like having a tooth pulled--and sometimes like making love while having a tooth pulled. I arrived at one of those joyful yet excruciating moments while working on The Darkest Evening of the Year.

Because I am obsessive about the revision of each page--the word fussbudget is embarrassingly apt when I am brooding over whether to use a comma or a semicolon--I have more than once held on to a manuscript until the drop-dead date for delivery. When that date rolled around for this book, I had written everything, but I was unwilling to send all of it to my editor. I withheld the last fifty pages for another four days, causing a quiet panic in those at my publishing house who are responsible for meeting production deadlines.

Although the book was done, I felt that something was wrong with Chapter 63. The action worked, the characters were in character, the mood was sustained...but something felt wrong with it, some fine point of the villain's motivation. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I worked 12-hour days, trying to identify the source of my doubt, but couldn't specify it to my satisfaction.

Nothing like this had ever happened to me. Previously, my worst struggles with a story had come in the first two-thirds, and the final third had been, if not a sweet swift toboggan run, at least a sleigh ride.

Sunday, I got up at 6:00 and set to work, revising, looking for the thorn I could feel but couldn't see--and ended up working 22 hours, eating at my desk, before tumbling to the problem at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning. "Eureka!" I cried, but I was so weary and my voice was so weak that my shout of jubilation came out as a squeak.

The revisions required to Chapter 63 were minor, but after working 58 hours in four days, after having passed a night without sleep, I was unable to focus sharply enough to get them done in the little time that remained before the production schedule would be derailed. In desperation, I turned to that source of creative energy and literary enlightenment that is without equal: ice cream.

I shuffled to the kitchen and snared a Dreyer's Slow-Churned Vanilla Almond Crunch bar from the freezer. I devoured this sweet-and-creamy muse, and felt the scales lift from my eyes; inspiration sparkled between my ears. I finished the revisions and e-mailed the final version of Chapter 63 to my editor with not a minute to spare. Although the American Heart Association will take issue with me, my advice to young writers stuck on a scene is to stop worrying about your arteries and give your wheel-spinning imagination what it needs to find traction: a tasty shot of fat and sugar.

--Dean Koontz, October 2007

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Price: $3.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Make way for Marley!

When the Grogan family is ready for a dog, they choose Marley, a yellow furball of a puppy who quickly grows into a large, rowdy Labrador retriever. Marley has a zest for life, and as he grows, so does his enthusiasm He has an appetite for whatever he can get his paws on—from fine jewelry to underwear—and the one thing he always finds is trouble. Marley even gets kicked out of obedience school! Can this rambunctious pup ever learn how to be a good boy?

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Price: $3.68 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau. With her trademark wisdom and humor, Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau’s, and on the lessons she’s learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, “I smell bacon!”

Of the dog that once possessed a catcher’s mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, “there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”

Heartening and bittersweet, Good Dog. Stay. honors the life of a cherished and loyal friend and offers us a valuable lesson on our four-legged family members: Sometimes an old dog can teach us new tricks..
Price: $3.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When Mark Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he brings home Beau, a large, malnourished golden retriever in need of loving care. Joining Arden, the black retriever, to complete their family, Beau bounds back into life. Before long, the two dogs become Doty's intimate companions, and eventually the very life force that keeps him from abandoning all hope during the darkest days.

Dog Years is a poignant, intimate memoir interwoven with profound reflections on our feelings for animals and the lessons they teach us about living, love, and loss.

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Price: $7.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Full of Information. Great Detail.
Price: $2.52 [Notify me when price goes down.]