The Great Good Dog

PEOPLE HAVE MORE FUN THAN ANYBODY: A Centennial Celebration of Drawings and Writings by James Thurber, edited by Michael J. Rosen (Harcourt Brace & Company: $22.95; 169 pp.) The art on this page is from his book, which includes 18 prose pieces and more than 75 previously uncollected drawings (many, of course, from The New Yorker). In the essay “I Like Dogs,” Thurber writes with characteristic forthrightness and restraint: “I am not a dog lover. A dog lover to me means a dog that is in love with another dog. I am a great admirer of certain dogs, just as I am an admirer of certain men . . . . I do not believe in any such sentimentality as that man’s best friend is the dog. Man’s best friend is man. A friend is one who cleaves to you in spite of the left side of your nature, the dark and sticky side. To him you are one fine guy, without any faults.”