The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Following the lead of the St. Albert Public Library, Oprah picked the next title for her book club: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, the debut novel by David Wroblewski. We recommended it in our St. Albert Gazette "Great Reading" picks back in July. But alas, I can't claim credit for discovering it as it was one of the summer's buzz books, with great reviews all over the place (Ron Charles in the Washington Post for example.)
Here's the Gazette blurb: "Prepare for the dog days of summer with this widely-acclaimed novel that readers can lose themselves in. A riveting family story, based loosely on Hamlet, about a mute boy, Edgar, and the special dogs he breeds on a remote Wisconsin farm."
I paired it with another summer dog novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein: "A novel narrated by Enzo, the family dog, about his master Denny, an aspiring Seattle race-car driver. It may sound odd but even hard-hearted skeptics will be pulled into this moving story of a family in crisis."
My family and I listened to Enzo's tale on unabridged audiobook as we drove to Vancouver Island this summer. We finished it on the drive back, somewhere east of Vancouver I think, with all members of the family blubbering away (I'm not spoiling the plot - from page one you know that, well, Enzo dies).