Just for sake of argument and because I don't want to start a new thread for just one item (although I can be persuaded differently, if need be), here's a book you'll want to read ... it came out a while ago, but almost everybody I've recommended it to seems to have heard of it from a different source and finds it engrossing (at the very least). You be the judge.
The Art of Racing in the Rain : A Novel
by Garth Stein (321 pp)
HarperCollins, 2008; ISBN 978-1-55468-172-3
Harper Perennial (pbk ed), 2010; ISBN 978-1-44340-496-9
SUMMARY
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television and by listening closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.
On the night before his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through, hoping, in his next life, to return as a human.
