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 enlarge | Author: Ted Kerasote
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $0.29
You Save: $24.71 (99%)
New (54) Used (68) Collectible (7) from $0.29
Avg. Customer Rating:  187 reviews
Sales Rank: 6525
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.6
ISBN: 0151012709
Dewey Decimal Number: 636.7092
EAN: 9780151012701
ASIN: 0151012709
Publication Date: July 2, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Standard used condition.
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| Customer Reviews:
Merle, you are the best July 27, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
You need a dog, and I am it. I really loved this book. It far exceeds any book on dog/human relationships that I have read. I can only imagine how painful it must have been for Ted to lose Merle. I picked up a stray (black lab) about four years ago that someone had dumped off a few days prior. He, like Merle, was only a pup, skinny, wet, and unlike Merle, had several fat ticks on him. I had meant to clean him up, get him his shots and take him to the animal shelter. I just didn't have the heart to do it. I feel so fortunate that I kept him. Whoever dropped him off missed a great opportunity to enjoy a wonderful dog and partner. I cried my way through the last chapter. What with Brower and Merle both passing away. I read that last chapter while in my car in a parking lot and had tears running down my cheeks. I wonder what passersby thought? What a book! I definitely will read this book again soon. I have recommended this book to everyone I know who loves dogs.
Great Reading July 26, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Really fabulous book which for the first time gives a true understanding of the bond between a dog and his human companion. A MUST READ book.
THE Best. July 20, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
We've all been there. Well, those of us who have lived with and loved pets have. You'll recognize the place....that spot in your soul in which a wondrous animal's love resides, gently encased by the love you feel for him or her.
I was searching Amazon for another book when I spied the cover of Merle's Door - there was Merle, looking frank and confident into the camera as he rested on a rocky crag. It took me about 5 seconds to click the Add to Cart button and rush through my order - and I am truly a normally deliberate consumer.
OK, the truth is that just a month earlier, my beautiful Rusty left us after too brief a time of 12 years. He was a rescue Golden, with a little Irish Setter in his lineage somewhere, which tinged his coat nearly the same color as Merle's. Maybe it was the semi-resemblance that drew me in to this book.
I had grieved, but knew there was much more inside to process still.
Ted, if you ever read these Amazon reviews out of idle curiosity (for I know you already know you produced a masterful story about a magical relationship), please know that your book helped me get further along the path to acceptance. Last night I finished the book and spent a good two hours afterward crying and remembering and being thankful I had had the time I did with Rusty, The Bean Dog. It helped me, though I'm not all the way home...still at the place of wanting him here and back and at my side. But it helped. Thanks, Ted.
BTW, Rusty loved the Hallelujah Chorus, too, or at least he tolerated it when I sang the tune to made up words of praise for him. I know he always smiled anyway.
Read this book, people, and recommend it to your friends, give it for gifts. You will be doing a good thing for yourself and others.
Amazing July 20, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I really like biographies: Potter's Nimitz, Edmund Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, William Manchester's MacArthur. Ted Kerasote has written my favorite so far. Merle's Door is a brilliantly written biography of someone I'd never heard of, the author's best friend, a Lab mix dog who found him on a trip in the American wilderness. In this book, we are privy to a wonderful lifetime relationship between the author and Merle, the Freethinking Dog from the point of view of both. Kerasote, like T. Roosevelt, is an informed naturalist who has a reverence for our beautiful world and a keen desire to understand it. Dog books generally pull heartstrings. So true in Merle's Door but Kerasote very effectively touches both the reader's heart and brain. Ted Kerasote in this book recalls conversations between his dog and him, translating for us Merle's part. This is not Lady and the Tramp. Kerasote peppers throughout the book scientific sources from archeology, anthropology, psychology, and biology that are clear and as interesting as the love story itself. He challenges in a convincing way conventional thinking about and practice of keeping dogs. I think anyone who has ever loved a dog who reads this book will feel validated concerning conversations (two-way) they have had with their own dogs. For some people, this biography will likely serve as a self-help relationship type of book (watch out Dr. Phil). I truly enjoyed this book.
View from near by July 14, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Kerasote's writing is exquisite, the story poignant and Merle was a great dog. I would guess that somebody will fault the book for being too anthropomorphic, but I'd suggest that those folks get a dog and make him or her part of their lives and see if it doesn't all make more sense, then.
I live just across the Jackson Hole valley from Kelly, the hamlet where Merle was mayor. I know a few of the people who pass through the book's pages (although I've never crossed paths with Kerasote). The detail and depth of the author's description of the physical environment in which he lived with Merle is a great delight, too, and adds another good reason to spend some time with the book.
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