A dog's life - Paul Bailey

In the spring of 1985, the novelist Paul Bailey found himself becoming the unlikely owner of a dog. He saw the puppy in the window of a pet shop and was instantly (and lastingly) beguiled. She was given the name Circe by Bailey's dying partner, David, who was also overcome by her charms, though after a good deal of resistance. This memoir tells of the sixteen years Paul Bailey spent in Circe's company, while also offering portraits of friends and acquaintances, living and dead. There are sketches of the various eccentrics encountered during his walks with the dog, and descriptions of the author's trips abroad - to Romania, Poland, and Hungary, among other countries.

Paul Bailey is the author of nine novels, including At The Jerusalem, which won the Somerset Maugham Prize for a First Novel, Gabriel's Lament, and Uncle Rudolph. He has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize and has also written a biography of Cynthia Payne, called An English Madam, Three Queer Lives, and a first volume of memoirs entitled An Immaculate Mistake.