“Tender and amusing…Doty brilliantly captures the qualities that make dogs endearing.” — The New Yorker
“Life-affirming, lyrical, and profoundly affecting…Only Mark Doty could have written a dog book...that covers so much ground.” — Pam Houston, O magazine
“Potent and expressive...The weight of Doty’s adoration for his pets is expressed with...eloquence throughout.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“This is Doty at his best....Doty does in fact make the unsayable sayable, bringing the ungraspable within our reach.” — Los Angeles Times
“A tender reflection on love and loss, this is MARLEY & ME for the cerebral.” — People
“Doty pays loving tribute to two retrievers…DOG YEARS is a warm, thought-provoking discourse.” — Entertainment Weekly
“A wounding yet arresting memoir about living with his dogs…Doty’s gorgeous prose and piercing meditations...are simply sublime.” — Washington Post Magazine
“Lyrical and sensitive…Doty poetically expresses what many have felt but few can articulate.” — USA Today
“Doty is at his best…exploring the mirrorlike quality of a dog’s gaze or the inextricable duality of hope and despair..” — New York magazine
“A meditation on how we can live with hope…Dog Years wrestles with the Big Questions.” — Houston Chronicle
“I was charmed, moved, often fascinated…Doty manages to make inner lives just a little more knowable.” — Chicago Sun-Times
“No human has ever loved his animals as Mark Doty has…Doty possesses a particular brilliance...[A] stirring chronicle of love.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A great poet can break your heart, sometimes with a single line. Mark Doty proves it twice over….Utterly unforgettable.” — Palm Beach Post
“Frankly and beautifully told…DOG YEARS respects Beau’s and Arden’s singularity. Doty describes them lovingly, with poetic specificity.” — John Freeman, Newark Star Ledger
“By turns, comic, heartwarming, sentimental (in the very best way) and ultimately heartbreaking.” — Ken Munger, Sacramento News and Review
“Doty writes unsentimentally but affectingly about the solace and companionship dogs provide...the hope...they bring into a home.” — Out Magazine
“Rather amazing...A profound reflection on hope, and a song of praise for the dead.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“Poignant, intelligent, and quite simply superb.” — Library Journal (starred)
“DOG YEARS points out what is...magical about life with animals…A...twinkling landscape of the human heart.” — BookPage
“Doty delivers a soulful love story which illuminates...the big human mysteries…As intellectually evocative as it is emotionally resonant.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evocative, compassionate, a love story both intimate and grand, this is a beautiful book.” — Amy Hempel
“A dazzling, tactile grasp of the world... both arresting and touching.” — New York Times Book Review