My pup Fergus still has an appetite for the printed word, and I am happy to report that his taste has improved. Last week, he sank his teeth into a mystery by Charles Todd that I was reading. But he has yet to savor Bill Bryson’s memoir, Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, which I just finished reading and highly recommend.

Although it has nothing to do with horses or dogs, Bryson’s memoir about growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950s is a treasure, full of nostalgia and gut-wrenchingly funny. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams recently listed it as one of his “five favorite portraits of Americans” for the Wall Street Journal.

“Not long after I began reading the book on a flight to Iraq, I was laughing so hard that I started heaving and weeping in my seat,” said Williams. “I’m quite sure the flight attendants briefly considered turining the plane around.”

If you like well-crafted, psychological mysteries, like Fergus and I do, you might also enjoy Charles Todd’s inspector Ian Rutledge novels set in post World War I England.