THURBER’S DOGS by James Thurber (Fireside:...

THURBER’S DOGS by James Thurber (Fireside: $12; 320 pp.). Dogs brought out the best in the often misanthropic Thurber, as this collection of fiction, nonfiction and cartoons demonstrates. Many of these tales have been accorded the status of classics: “The Dog That Bit People,” a bemused recollection of an anti-social Airedale; “In Defense of Dogs,” an account of a Scotch terrier that embarrassed the author by having an unexpected fifth puppy during a walk on Fifth Avenue, and “Memorial,” a gently touching tribute to a dying poodle. With characteristic irony, Thurber notes that the dog “has seen men raise up great cities to heaven and then blow them to hell.”