Unleashed
By Amy Hempel and Jim Shepard

I'm a huge dog lover—I just adopted a new dog last week. I keep this book by my bedside. Arthur Miller's "Lola's Lament," for instance, is fantastic: "I worry. / I have to because nobody else does." But one in particular by Edward Albee about his dog Samantha after she dies—"They weren't with me / When I was taken in to die"—makes me cry every time I read it.