Come Back, Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog [Hardcover]

Steven Winn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2009

This is the story of a unique journey: one man's valiant quest to win the love of a truly one-of-a-kind dog, a creature usually thought of as man's best friend. With humour and pathos, Winn describes the exasperating but ultimately rewarding effects Como had on his family, the ordeals he and his dog endured together, and the greatest lesson Como taught him: that loving a dog can somehow make us more human.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A delightful story about the joys and deeper meanings dogs bring into our lives.” (Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author )

“Even people who don’t much care for dogs, and I am one, will be moved and entertained by Steven Winn’s story of pursuit and rejection and renewed pursuit between man and pooch. Its real subject, transcending species, is the struggle for understanding between minds and hearts.” (Adam Gopnik, New Yorker staff writer and author of Paris to the Moon and Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life )

As a man owned by a dog, I read this book with delight, merriment, and deep sympathy. And when I reached the most touching parts, there was my dog’s head, in my lap -- he knew I had a heart all along. (David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film and Try to Tell the Story: A Memoir )

About the Author

Award-winning journalist and fiction writer Steven Winn was a staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University and a founding staff member of the Seattle Weekly, his work has appeared in publications from Good Housekeeping, Parenting, and Parents, to Sports Illustrated, AARP magazine, the Utne Reader, and the National Lampoon. He has appeared on 20/20, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, AandE Biography, and NPR.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (September 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006180259X
• ISBN-13: 978-0061802591
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Me & Marley Take 2 (And Every Bit as Good), September 25, 2009

By 

Miss Darcy (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Come Back, Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

It's impossible not to compare this w/Me & Marley. If you enjoyed that book, you'll love this one, too. The main difference, I think, is that the author and his family play a larger role in this book (which is just fine). He explains their (the parents') family history with dogs, and there are a lot of emotional/psychological issues involved before the dog even turns up. Then, the author really struggles with the fact that the dog prefers (by far) his wife and daughter, and his attempts to lure the dog to the leash by sitting on the toilet in helpless mode are quite amusing. All of the human beings in this book receive much more air time than the folks in Me & Marley (I read that one recently and can't recall much about the family; yet I am unlikely to forget this engaging family of three any time soon). His descriptions are great; you can really imagine the Australian savior at the vet and the unnamed heros who help him catch the dog. You can feel his mixed sadness as his daughter blossoms from a tween to a full-blown teenager any parent would be proud of. You can picture the neighborhood and smell the tacos his wife brings home for lunch. The writing really invites readers in. It's an easy, memorable read, and I would definitely recommend this to all. (And I'd recommend saving a shelter pet, too. Hard work but worth every minute!) Share this one with your friends.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a SIX-Star Book, October 4, 2009

By 

Leigh Thomas (Texas, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Come Back, Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog (Hardcover)

This amazing story is like a braid, woven of three parts.

The first is Como, an unlikely family dog who hates confinement and loves his freedom so much that he risks his life on a regular basis. The second lock of the braid is about the Winn family, a warmhearted and very principled group of three, itself with a challenge, that of continuing responsibility and even love for what quickly turns into a maniacal little creature who destroys crates or cages, carpet, baby gates, and anything else that hampers his freedom.

And the third strand of the woven braid is the story of what it really MEANS to bestow familyship upon a trying little dog. The author gets a double whammy by realizing that Como, probably due to some experience when he was a stray, hates men. Steven is not spared. As Como comes to love Steven's wife Sally and their daughter Phoebe, he refuses in the first months to have anything to do with Steven. Finally, it happens, and Como escapes, running in front of a car, and though it's only afterwards, when we know Como has survived some serious surgery and recoup time, we are left with an enduring (and endearing) picture of the author, tearing wildly down the San Francisco streets in his bathrobe.

By the time an almost lifeless dog is scooped up in Steven's arms and rushed to the vet, there is more blood, from survival bites, on the author than on the dog. The escape is the result of workmen in the house not closing a door, but the guilt the author piles on himself is heart wrenching.

For anyone who has ever loved a dog, or loved a child who loved a dog, this book deserves a good spot on a prominent shelf. If you don't have to wipe at some tears, you may not be getting it. But on a higher note, you will be rewarded with smiles and sudden cries of laughter that you will remember for some time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Como is a normal dog with a neurotic and pessimistic "dad", October 8, 2009

By 

Kathleen San Martino (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Come Back, Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog (Hardcover)

Como is the author's teenage daughter's dog. The author sets the stage for the title of the book in the first chapter and then describes his and his family's life "before Como" in the next 40 pages. The rest of the book describes how the author and his family went about Como's adoption and the subsequent life and antics that followed during their first two years together. The book's last chapter ends six years after Como's adoption.

On the positive side, the author is an absolutely phenomenal writer. The way he describes some of Como's antics and his response to them were sometimes so funny that I almost peed in my pants from laughing so hard.

BUT........................

On the negative side, his story can make a devoted pet lover SCREAM "ARE YOU CRAZY and that NAIVE"? For instance, he mentions how he enticed Como to eat a piece of a chocolate power bar so he could catch him on one of his wild escape escapades. Every dog owner should know that chocolate can kill a dog yet he makes no attempt to even acknowledge that he made a mistake. Perhaps he still doesn't know chocolate is dangerous to dogs.

I am not sure if the author is really as disturbed and negative as he makes himself appear to be in the book or if he is just purposely over exaggerating and saying things in "jest" just to create a good read. Much of the story makes me want to strangle (figuratively speaking, of course) the author and his wife (less so for his wife) for how naïve they are about pet ownership. The only one who seems to know how to take care of a dog is their daughter Phoebe who reads many books about dogs that apparently they never read.

In my opinion, Como is a normal dog adopted by parents who do not have a clue about pet ownership. An uninformed person who is thinking of becoming a pet parent can get the wrong parenting message from this book. It is mainly because of this that I rated this book three stars. Had he redeemed himself in the prologue or conclusion of the book by explaining the things he did wrong (like the chocolate) and acknowledging that he now knows how to be a pet parent, I would have given the book four stars. Instead the author's last three chapters are boring and erupt like a VERBAL VOLCANO about anything and everything mostly unrelated to Como.

"Come Back, Como" is a bit drawn out for what I consider normal pet ownership issues. Nevertheless, the author's colorful writing style makes the story an entertaining read up until the last three chapters; although, those who question his pet parenting skills may writhe in anger.

In essence "Come Back, Como" is an extremely subdued version of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog.