

A Year of Cats and Dogs
Author: Margaret Hawkins
Narrator: Heather Henderson
Unabridged: 6 hr 30 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 07/31/2018
Categories: Fiction
Author: Margaret Hawkins
Narrator: Heather Henderson
Unabridged: 6 hr 30 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 07/31/2018
Categories: Fiction
Margaret Hawkins is the author of a few novels, including A Year of Cats and Dogs, Lydia’s Party, and How to Survive a Natural Disaster as well as a memoir about her sister, After Schizophrenia: The Story of My Sister’s Reawakening. She has also written for the Chicago Sun-Times and is a senior lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Heather Henderson is a voice talent, theater critic, and dramaturg. In addition to narrating audiobooks, she has voiced hundreds of commercial and educational projects, and her arts reviews and poems have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country. She holds MFA and DFA degrees from the Yale School of Drama. She lives in Oregon.
"Original" and "ambitious" can mean almost anything in a review, depending on context. Original ideas may be ill-advised, and an ambitious premise can be ineptly executed. But when I call Margaret Hawkins's debut novel, A YEAR OF CATS AND DOGS, original and ambitious, it is the highest praise I can......more
ARC received through the First Reads giveaway program. This quiet, meditative novel follows Maryanne as she struggles to come to grips with the loss of her boyfriend and job, her father's illness, a new relationship, and the fact that she finds she can mentally communicate with dogs and cats. It soun......more
“I relished this quirky, sparkling novel.” Julia Keller, Pulitzer Prize–winning Chicago Tribune critic
“Hawkins is a fine writer. A Year of Cats and Dogs would make a great stocking-stuffer for the holidays and, for sure, be an up-front offering at animal leagues, pet shops, and shelters everywhere.” Independent (London)
“Hawkins spins an offbeat and delightful tale of a midlife anti-crisis…The unhurried and lighthearted narrative…is a pleasant departure from the standard midlife crisis story.” Publishers Weekly
“Hawkins…has a fashioned a first novel that deftly traces the eruption and easing of emotional incoherence, while addressing serious questions of life and death with jaunty and edgy humor not unlike that of bestselling Jennifer Weiner.” Booklist
“Hawkins seamlessly weaves together many eclectic elements: soup recipes, I Ching meditations, bits of maudlin poetry, a pet’s simple request for toast, the heartache of death. You don’t have to be an animal lover to enjoy this funny and moving debut novel.” Library Journal