In the spring of 1985, 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 16 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. A Dog's Life is the sequel to Bailey's earlier book of memoirs An Immaculate Mistake, which Penguin published in 1991. Like that book, it is composed in a series of scenes, written as they came into the author's mind. Yet together they constitute a sustained narrative, at once funny and touching. At the heart of A Dog's Life, appropriately, is the captivating animal herself.