People Who Like Dogs Like People Who Like Dogs: Extraordinary encounters in an ordinary park

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'Anyone who has ever walked a dog and found themselves falling into conversation with others doing the same will love this funny, charming and touching book' RORY CELLAN-JONES

Ostensibly, Nick Duerden is a cat person, and so the acquisition of a family dog in his late-40s takes him by surprise. The border terrier, Missy, is in part a therapeutic aid - the idea being that she'll get Nick out of the house after a long period of ill health, and back into the wider, sociable world.

Unexpectedly, it works. There can't be many opportunities in midlife to suddenly find yourself connecting with both hopeful young actor types and widowed octogenarians, a verbose existentialist Russian dissident and a stoned martial arts enthusiast, a bulldog with a basketball and a self-proclaimed animal mystic, but this is precisely what Missy, and the daily walk round the park, provides. (Incidentally, she saves marriages, too.)

People Who Like Dogs Like People Who Like Dogs is a book about connection and friendship, love and loss, the vagaries of midlife and the deep solace that comes from an enduring relationship. It's about finding yourself when for too long you've been lost, and how even when, for whatever reason, horizons draw in, there's still plenty of adventure left. You just have to look harder for it.

And it's about how the introduction of a small dog into your life can make the world big again.

Reviews

Anyone who has ever walked a dog and found themselves falling into conversation with others doing the same will love this funny, charming and touching book

-- Rory Cellan-Jones
A delightful tale of dogs, their owners, and the communities they make together -- Katherine May
A wise and touching book about the small relationships that can nevertheless change lives -- Lissa Evans
Honest, insightful and brave, full of compassion and humour -- Michael Morpurgo
Anyone who has a dog will know just how much they can expand your world, but it came as a surprise to Duerden, who was a cat person until Missy the border terrier came into his life. A gloriously warm ode to our four-legged friends and the power of human connection. * i News, BEST OF 2024 *
This is a beautifully written book . . . There's something of the Alan Bennett about Duerden as he chronicles slices of everyday life. * Mail on Sunday *
Full of beguiling observations . . . a tale about human connection and our evolving need for it. Touching and funny. * Observer *

Author Bio

Nick Duerden is a writer and freelance broadsheet journalist. He has written widely on the arts, family and health, and is the author of two novels, a memoir on fatherhood, and other non-fiction works.