Ordinary Dogs

Eileen Battersby is the chief literature critic of The Irish Times and is, in the words of John Banville, 'the finest fiction critic we have'.

But her first full-length book is not about international literature or the state of the novel. It is about dogs. Two dogs in particular, with the unlikely names of Bilbo and Frodo. She adopted the first from a horrible dog pound, and the second decided he liked her and moved in to join the family. She was in her very early twenties, an intensely se...