Today is National Dog Day, and I usually do some sort of post noting books that I have enjoyed that include dogs as characters. This year, however, I didn’t discover any new titles since last time, so I decided instead to be a diligent research librarian—I’d go online to see if someone else had done the work for me!

I found a couple of “best dog books” lists. This is, of course, highly subjective, dependent on what you consider to be the “best” and why. But there were some familiar titles and also some that were new to me, so I’m going to satisfy today’s post requirement with a couple of URLs to other people’s lists.

The first is titled 100 Best Dog Books of All Time, and although it forgot a few of my favorites (such as A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, by C. A. Fletcher, and the Beka Cooper Trilogy, by Tamora Pierce), it did include quite a few favorites.

Then I found something of a treasure—it’s a list, on Wikipedia, of “fictional dogs,” which includes dogs that may not feature in either the title or description of “their” book. While the list is woefully incomplete (I may have to do some Wiki editing myself!), it named some names I hadn’t encountered before, so it was a profitable find.

Esquire Magazine contributed “The Long Tail of Dogs in Fiction,” taken from readers of the author’s Twitter page, while Flavorwire listed the “most beloved” amongst them, and Barkwells’ Dog Blog listed the “Pups who stole our hearts.” The Center for Fiction showcased “Dean Koontz’s Five Favorite Books About Dogs,” with a couple that were new to me. The blog Argos and Artemis went for “The Best Critically Acclaimed Books About Dogs.” (I should note that many/most of these lists are not current, but range back over the past decade.) And finally (because, at 69, I am still a girl), here is A Mighty Girl’s blog post “A Girl’s Best Friend: 50 Books About Mighty Girls and Their Dogs.”

Amongst all of these lists, most dog lovers should be able to find something that appeals to them and their dog(s). (That’s right, don’t forget to read aloud to that face gazing persistently at you over the top of the book cover!)

Or, you can jump back to one of my NDD posts from previous years, Dog Days of Summer and Dog Day Afternoon.

HAPPY DOG DAY!