Three Wild Dogs (and the truth): A Memoir

'Truthful – and often very funny – this is as true a book about a dog as you will find' – The Telegraph

In this poignant, funny and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs – a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family.

What happens when the Zusaks open their family home to three big, wild, pound-hardened dogs – Reuben, a wolf at your door with a hacksaw; Archer, blond, beautiful, deadly; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?

The answer can only be chaos: there are street fights, public shamings, property trashing, bodily injuries, stomach pumping, purest comedy, and carnage that needs to be seen to be believed . . . not to mention the odd police visit at some ungodly hour.

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love – and the joy and recognition of family. Three Wild Dogs (and the truth) is a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty straight to our doors and into our lives, and change us forever.

'Funny and charming . . . A stirring tale of the bond that can form between human and hound' – The Times