Today I'm going to read to you about half of a small but powerful book. I'd read you the entire book if I had the time. It's quite short, with about one sentence, one thought, per page. Still, it doesn't completely fit into this time slot, and I don't want to mess with anyone's copyright.

The book is Mostly Bob and it's one of the most moving small books I've come across in quite a long time. The author is Tom Corwin, a musician and music producer living in Northern California.

Mostly Bob began as an email to friends, and soon "assumed a life of its own.... This is the letter as it was originally written."

To all of you who have known and loved Bob:

I am terribly sad to say that Bob left us Saturday morning.

He was a great source of love, comfort and laughs to many of us.

He should serve as a powerful reminder to us all that wounded hearts can, and do, heal. It seemed to me his story deserved writing down.

He was amazingly successful in changing his own life. There are not a lot of dogs who can make that claim.

He was a true hero.

As you may know, Bob came to me after nine years of suffering and neglect. He had the misfortune of having a dog owner who had very little understanding of how to love animals. He was locked out of the house, and it seemed the only time Bob got attention was when his owner's temper was raging. As a consequence, Bob grew up seeing life through the narrow eyes of fear and survival.

I knew him for all those years as the psycho-dog next door. He was unbathed, smelled bad and looked like hell. He never set foot on my property. As much of a dog lover as I am, there was little to love or appreciate about Bob. If anyone (including myself) tried to walk onto the neighbor's property and pet him, he would peer through distrustful eyes, show his teeth, growl and bark like a rabid animal.

Occasionally when Bob would spend literally hours on end barking next door, I would walk over, brave his threats and try to calm him down. Sometimes it worked. I must admit in spite of this even I couldn't find much to like about Bob.

Then about four and a half years ago, through sheer genius and determination on Bob's part, he changed his own life.

He apparently noticed that Bubba, my fifteen-year-old golden retriever, had recently and sadly departed. (He may also have noticed that for the last year and a half of Bubba's life I had been carrying him up my one hundred stairs every day.)

About a month later I looked out the window and saw Bob on my property. I remember thinking to myself, 'That's weird, he never steps over the property line.' The next thing I noticed was when he walked onto my deck about a week later and lay down. 'Now that's really, really weird.' Then he simply stayed.

I did absolutely nothing to encourage him except offer the simple courtesy of an occasional conversation. No food, no water, no entry into the house, he was stinky and strange after all. But Bob essentially refused to leave.

(Bob had lived his entire life as an outside dog. He slept on an old couch under a covered deck next door. That was about it, plus one bowl of food a day.) For almost a year and a half Bob stayed under these conditions. He would go next door at 6:00 pm for the bowl of food left out for him and be back at 6:05. This became a practiced routine.

We leave stinky Bob and weirded-out Tom here, getting accustomed to each other, at the beginning of a new relationship.

Mostly Bob is a lovely gem of a book. Author Tom Corwin designed the book and drew the silhouetted illustration of a golden retriever walking gracefully through each page.

This book will bring some to tears, and be disliked by others, especially those for whom cynicism trumps sentiment.

I find myself in the middle on this one. It took several readings and a couple of months to allow myself the pleasure of simply enjoying the story without questioning the motives of author and publisher. In most cases it takes much more than a simply sad dog story to get past my b.s. detectors, but this story got past mine.

Many others have been moved by it, too. You may soon be one of them.

The title again is Mostly Bob, by Tom Corwin, published in hardcover by New World Library of Novato.

Aired Sunday February 5, 2006 at 10:55 am and Monday February 6, 2006 at 8:40 am

Orders/Information:

Mostly Bob written and illustrated by Tom Corwin. New World Library hardcover $12.95. ISBN 1577315251.