Overview

At loose ends with her daughter leaving home and her husband on the road, Sue Halpern decided to give herself and Pransky, her under-occupied Labradoodle, a new leash--er, lease--on life by getting the two of them certified as a therapy dog team. Smart, spirited, and instinctively compassionate, Pransky turned out to be not only a terrific therapist but an unerring moral compass. In the unlikely sounding arena of a public nursing home, she led her teammate into a series of encounters with the residents that revealed depths of warmth, humor, and insight Halpern hadn't expected. And little by little, their adventures expanded and illuminated Halpern's sense of what virtue is and does--how acts of kindness transform the giver as well as the given-to. Funny, moving, and profound, A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home is the story of how one faithful, charitable, loving, and sometimes prudent mutt--showing great hope, fortitude, and restraint along the way (the occasional begged or stolen treat notwithstanding)--taught a well-meaning woman the true nature and pleasures of the good life.

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9798200067152

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Time and again, anecdotes bolster her contention that in places where 'life is in the balance, ' it is possible to get to the essentials about human nature.-- Publishers Weekly [A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home is a] profoundly affecting and edifying chronicle brimming with practical wisdom and things 'that were so unexpected they seemed miraculous.' -- Booklist (starred review) Karen White's authentic interpretation of this moving book elevates Halpern's humane writing. Sounding perfectly in tune with the author's sensibilities and never losing track of the broader themes, she glides through the poetic, be-there-now passages. -- AudioFile Time and again, anecdotes bolster her contention that in places where 'life is in the balance, ' it is possible to get to the essentials about human nature. -- Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Sue Halpern received her doctorate from Oxford University in 1985 and first began teaching at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is the author of Four Wings and a Prayer, Migrations to Solitude, and two books of fiction. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Conde Nast Traveler, and the New York Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in Ripton, Vermont, with her husband, writer Bill McKibben, and their daughter, Sophie, and is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College. Karen White is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and currently writes Southern women's fiction. She lives in Georgia with her husband and two Havanese dogs.

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