Pet obsession

I declare two interests. I own a dog, Lily, and I admire the New York Review of Books. What could go wrong? Especially because, according to the enthusiastic introduction, back in 1999, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, My Dog Tulip won golden opinions from its first publication in 1956, notably from Julian Huxley and E. M. Forster. (I must say I saw Forster almost daily in 1954—1955 during his short walks at Kings College, Cambridge and he didn’t have a dog.) As Thomas wrote, here is the memoir of an unremarkable, badly behaved dog that adored her master, who loved her in return.

A ‘man of letters’, as they used to say, and a bachelor, Ackerley was a veteran of the Great War, scornful of women, with a timid maiden cousin with whom he sometimes stayed. Friendless, at least in this book, he visited local pubs and nodded to people he met.