Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman [Hardcover]

Lisa Scottoline (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 24, 2009

A hilarious collection of stories from the life of the New York Times bestselling author of Look Again

At last, together in one collection, are Lisa Scottoline’s wildly popular Philadelphia Inquirer columns. In her column, Lisa lets her hair down, roots and all, to show the humorous side of life from a woman’s perspective. The Sunday column debuted in 2007 and on the day it started, Lisa wrote, “I write novels, so I usually have 100,000 words to tell a story. In a column there’s only 700 words. I can barely say hello in 700 words. I’m Italian.” The column gained momentum and popularity. Word of mouth spread, and readers demanded a collection. Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog is that collection. Seventy vignettes. Vintage Scottoline.

In this collection, you’ll laugh about:

• Being caught braless in the emergency room

• Betty and Veronica’s Life Lessons for Girls

• A man’s most important body part

• Interrupting as an art form

• A religion men and women can worship

• Real estate ads as porn

• Spanx are public enemy number one

• And so much more about life, love, family, pets, and the pursuit of jeans that actually fit!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brief, punchy slices of daily life originally published in her Philadelphia Inquirer column allow novelist Scottoline (Everywhere That Mary Went) to dish on men, mothers, panty lines and, especially, dogs. Somewhere in her mid-50s, twice divorced (from men she calls Thing One and Thing Two) and living happily in the burbs with her recent college-graduate daughter and a passel of pets, Scottoline maintains a frothy repartee with the reader as she discusses ways she would redecorate the White House (Cupholders for all!), relies on her built-in Guilt-O-Meter to get dreaded tasks done (a broken garbage disposal rates only a 1, while accumulating late fees at the library rates a 7) and contemplates, while making a will, who will get her cellulite. For some quick gags, Scottoline brings in various family members: mother Mary, a whippersnapper at 4'11 who lives in South Beach with her gay son, Scottoline's brother Frank, and possesses a coveted back-scratcher; and her Harvard-educated daughter, Francesca. Plunging into home improvement frenzy, constructing a chicken coop, figuring out mystifying insurance policies and how not to die at the gym are some of the conundrums this ordinary woman faces with verve and wicked humor, especially how her beloved dogs have contentedly replaced the romance in her life. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Scottoline, author of several thrillers featuring women and writer of the weekly Chick Wit column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, offers a collection of her published columns and additional commentary on life from a woman’s perspective. Her columns feature the people in her life—mom (aka Mother Mary), brother, daughter, friends, and her pets, including four dogs of long and faithful companionship, thus the title of the book. Minor characters are two ex-husbands she calls Thing One and Thing Two. Among her observations and ruminations: how divorce has led to families having multiple dogs, the virtues of visible panty and bra lines, starting a religion that allows women to have multiple husbands, how women’s magazines ignore women over 40, the bittersweet experience of a child going off to college, and the awkwardness of men determined not to look at women’s breasts, which results in fixed stares. Scottoline takes the fodder of everyday life and offers witty reflections from a female perspective. --Vanessa Bush

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (November 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312587481
• ISBN-13: 978-0312587482
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (153 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #623,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels including her most recent, THINK TWICE, and also writes a weekly column, called Chick Wit, for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Lisa has won many honors and awards, notably the Edgar Award, given for excellence in crime fiction, and the Fun Fearless Female Award from Cosmopolitan Magazine. She also teaches a course she created, called Justice and Fiction at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and regularly does speaking engagements. There are twenty-five million copies of her books in print, and she is published in over thirty other countries.Lisa graduated magna cum laude in three years from the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.A. degree in English, and her concentration was Contemporary American Fiction, taught by Philip Roth and others. She graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She remains a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area, where she lives with her array of disobedient pets.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#34 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#35 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#43 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

#46 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

#49 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#34 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#35 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#43 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

#46 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

#49 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh at Life October 7, 2009

By W. Easley TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I do not understand women. What man does? Lisa Scottoline writes about women from a woman's view. I think this book is insightful and funny. Women, I am certain, will probably understand references that leave me scratching my head. When she talks about being braless, for example, I get an image she probably did not intend.

Lisa Scottoline's new book is often hilarious, like when she writes about Spanx ("like slipping into a tourniquet"). Lisa, who wrote sixteen novels, also penned a regular newspaper column about the lives of ordinary women. Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog edits and re-presents her columns.

Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog, details events common to the lives of ordinary women. We relive incidents like: choosing which bacteria to accept, the art of reading ads, and lessons learned from Archie comic books. We see a new perspective on hot flashes, which are really "God's way of compensating women for all the years they spent being cold." Then we contemplate washing our face with diamond dust (it exfoliates the skin - but wash it off or your "face will be sparkly").

Two sections I especially enjoyed were the concept of a new religion where a wife can have as many husbands as she wishes, and a chore list where men can exchange "have a baby" with "take out the trash". The idea of men bearing the children is interesting at best and horrible to contemplate at worst.

I highly recommend this book for regular comedy breaks. The chapters are very short, so you can read a chapter during a 5 minute coffee break and take the laugh back with you to work. I especially recommend this book to women and hope someday a woman will explain the parts that passed me by.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Lisa Scottoline, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog November 5, 2009

By Michael G. Lustig VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Most of the brief essays in this book appeared in the column the author writes for the The Philadelphia Inquirer, presumably in order of publication. I found the book perfect for reading before bedtime. It is amusing and carries no significant message except to enjoy life and one's family. Scottoline's love of family is apparent on every page and cause for humor as she describes her relationships with her mother, brother, and daughter. As a change of pace, the latter has also contributed a few of the essays, giving a multi-generational view of life. Fortunately for pet lovers, Scottoline's family includes various animals, such as her dogs, cats, chickens, and a pony. Their antics are a source of amusement and their trials and tribulations tear at the heart strings. This is light reading but should certainly appeal to those who have struggled with the generation gap or are past the first blush of youth. It should also appeal to pet lovers, parents of grown children, and anyone looking for a bit of laughter at the end of the day.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A WRITER'S ORDINARY LIFE, TOLD WITH EXTRAORDINARY WIT November 20, 2009

By Laurel-Rain Snow "Rain" TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

In Scottoline's collection of essays, excerpted from her "Philadelphia Inquirer" columns, we follow her adventures through the minefields of motherhood, love, men, and Spanx. Yes, that's what I said. Her hilariously funny take on those particular garments, as well as other aspects of "middle-aged" life, had me laughing all the way to the last chapter.

Her views on finances, food, pets vs. men, and how the mother-daughter relationship shifts over the years are so relatable that I couldn't stop reading.

I especially enjoyed her perspective on resolutions. She has what she calls "unresolutions," which are simply things you're already doing that you don't want to change, like: "UnResolution Number One. I sleep in my clothes, and I resolve to keep sleeping in my clothes. I know this sounds weird, and it helps that my clothes are fleece pants and a fleece top, because I work at home..."

Then there's her chapter on "Things to Do." She describes it this way: "To explain, I let my Things to Do pile up because when I'm in the final draft of a book, I do nothing else. I let everything go, including my roots. You don't want to see me with final-draft roots. It looks like my hair got caught in a forest fire, leaving behind burnt trunks and a very single woman."

Then in the beginning of her chapter on "Bail-Outs," she describes how, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, we look for the people in our lives for whom we're thankful...and then she describes a rainy day when she was searching for an address, becoming more and more confused when she couldn't find the number which seemed nonexistent, and then a stranger appeared. Someone who handed her an umbrella and proceeded to look for and discover that the "out-of-order" address number was just down the street, and she realized that she was suddenly thankful for the kindness of a complete stranger who went out of his way to help her.

Full of gems of wisdom, quirkiness, and down-to-earth anecdotes that fill ordinary lives and make us smile, Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman is a book that I know I'll reread often, just so I can laugh. And relate to one of my favorite authors who seems to be just like you and me.