100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Fast overnight NZ delivery 🚀 Don't forget Father's Day is this Sunday 📅

The Best Dog in the World

Essays on Love
Brief Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Fourteen beloved authors celebrate the life-changing bond with their canine companions in this heartwarming essay collection edited by New York Times bestselling author and lifelong dog lover Alice Hoffman. Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with... Read More
Format: Hardback
$5500
Pre-order
Releases 27th October 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "The Best Dog in the World" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

Fourteen beloved authors celebrate the life-changing bond with their canine companions in this heartwarming essay collection edited by New York Times bestselling author and lifelong dog lover Alice Hoffman.

Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with a dog knows the experience is both profound and transformative. Here, in this charming collection of essays, fourteen celebrated authors share unforgettable tales of the dogs who left their pawprints on their hearts.

With contributions from Isabel Allende, Chris Bohjalian, Bonnie Garmus, Roxane Gay, Emily Henry, Ann Leary, Tova Mirvis, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Amy Tan, Adriana Trigiani, Nick Trout, Paul Yoon, and Laura Zigman, The Best Dog in the World captures the full range of the canine-human connection, from the joy of welcoming a new puppy to the heartache of saying goodbye to a beloved friend.

A love letter to the loyal companions who enrich our lives and teach us about empathy, joy, and unconditional love, this anthology is the perfect gift for dog lovers everywhere, offering a blend of laughter, tears, and inspiration that will resonate with anyone who has been fur-ever touched by the love of a dog.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781668209028

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 10 March 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Simon & Schuster

Illustration: 2-c printed endpapers; b&w line illustrations throughout

Contributors:

  • Contributions by Roxane Gay
  • Contributions by Chris Bohjalian
  • Contributions by Jodi Picoult
  • Contributions by Ann Leary
  • Contributions by Bonnie Garmus
  • Contributions by Isabel Allende
  • Contributions by Tova Mirvis
  • Contributions by Emily Henry

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 23.0mm

Width: 127.0mm

Height: 178.0mm

Weight: 299g

Pages: 240

About the Author

Alice Hoffman is the author of thirty works of fiction, including Practical Magic, Practical Magic 2, The Dovekeepers, and Magic Lessons. Visit her website: AliceHoffman.com.

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her twenty-eight books across forty-two languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, and Eva Luna. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs. You can visit Isabel Allende at IsabelAllende.com or follow her on Instagram @AllendeIsabel, on Facebook at Facebook.com/IsabelAllende, and on X @IsabelAllende.

Chris Bohjalian is the author of twelve novels, including the New York Times bestsellers, Secrets of Eden, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Midwives. His work has been translated into twenty-six languages. He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter. Visit him at www.chrisbohjalian.com or www.facebook.com .

Bonnie Garmus is a coffee-dependent American novelist. Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, was a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, a Goodreads Choice Best Book of the Year, spent nearly two years on the New York Times bestseller list and was named by Times readers as one of the top 100 books of the 21st century. Translated into over forty languages, Lessons in Chemistry was honored with sixteen international literary awards and made into an Apple TV limited series. Peck & Peck is her second novel.

Roxane Gay's writing has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney's, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, the Guardian and Salon among many others. She is the co-editor of PANK and the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State and Bad Feminist. Twitter: @rgay. Website: www.roxanegay.com.

Ann Leary is the New York Times bestselling author of a memoir and four novels including The Good House. Her work has been translated into eighteen languages, and she has written for The New York Times, Ploughshares, NPR, Redbook, and Real Simple, among other publications. Her essay, “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive,” was adapted for Prime Video’s television series, Modern Love. Her novel The Good House was adapted as a motion picture starring Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline. She lives with her husband in New York. Visit her online at AnnLeary.com.

Tova Mirvis is the author of the memoir The Book of Separation as well as four novels: We Would Never, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Real Simple, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her family. You can connect with her on her website, TovaMirvis.com.

Jodi Picoult received an AB in creative writing from Princeton and a master’s degree in education from Harvard. The recipient of the 2003 New England Book Award for her entire body of work, she is the author of twenty-seven novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers House Rules, Handle With Care, Change of Heart, and My Sister’s Keeper, for which she received the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. Visit her website at JodiPicoult.com.

Adriana Trigiani is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including the instant New York Times bestseller The Good Left Undone. Her work has been published in thirty-eight languages around the world. An award-winning playwright, television writer/producer and filmmaker, Adriana’s screen credits include writer/director of the major motion picture of her debut novel, Big Stone Gap, the adaptation of her novel Very Valentine and director of Then Came You. Adriana grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where she cofounded The Origin Project, an in-school writing program serving over 1,700 students in Appalachia. She is at work on her next novel.

Paul Yoon is the author of six works of fiction: Etna; Once the Shore, a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, an NPR Best Book of the Year; Run Me to Earth, a Time Must-Read Books of 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; and The Hive and the Honey, winner of the 20th Annual Story Prize and longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates prize.

Also by Alice Hoffman

View all
  • Practical Magic
    The beloved classic novel, the basis of the classic film starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. As children, sisters Gillian and Sally were forever outsiders in their small New England town, teased, taunted, and shunned for the air of magic that seems to sparkle in the air around them. All Gillian and Sally ever wanted was to get away. And...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Elsewhere:
    $2699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • When We Flew Away
    There is a day you never forget, the day the whole world changes. When you close your eyes, light becomes dark, night never ends, beasts walk freely down the street, stars fall from the sky. You were young one second, and then you were far too old. You lived years in minutes and decades in weeks. You wanted to travel,...
    Paperback
    $1900
    Elsewhere:
    $2199
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Invisible Hour
    From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books. Sixteen-year-old Ivy is pregnant and alone. Cast out by her family, she runs away and finds safety in the arms of Joel Davis. He offers a simpler life than the one she had...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Dovekeepers
    ‘A major contribution to twenty-first-century literature’ Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and author of Beloved In the year 70 CE, nine hundred Jews held out for months against the Roman army in ancient Israel. Only two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic event, Alice Hoffman weaves a spellbinding story about the lives of four bold and remarkable women...
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $2699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Magic Lessons
    Where does the story of the Owens family begin? With a baby abandoned in a snowy field in the 1600s. Under the care of Hannah Owens, little Maria learns about the “Unnamed Arts.” Hannah recognises that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. When Maria is abandoned by the man she loves, she follows him...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Elsewhere:
    $2699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Rules of Magic
    Everyone needs a little magic in their lives... The Rules of Magic is the long-awaited prequel to Practical Magic, a New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon's Book Club pick! In this sparkling prequel, we meet the Aunts from Practical Magic: sisters Frances and Jet, along with their brother Vincent. From the beginning, their mother Susanna knew they were unique:...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Elsewhere:
    $2699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Witches of Cambridge
    Pre-order
    The Witches of Cambridge
    Once upon a time, women were drowned in the river and the only witnesses were the crows in the trees. The Puritans blamed Eve for the sins of the world. That was when we began to meet in the name of Lilith, Adam's first wife—banished for refusing to do as she was told. By the 1950s, Cambridge, Massachusetts feels far...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    Pre-order
    Out 15 Sep 2026
  • The Book of Magic
    ‘Full of Hoffman’s bewitching and lucid prose and vivid characters, The Book of Magic is ultimately about the very human magic of family and love and actions that echo through generations… it casts a spell’ —Matt Haig THE STUNNING, UNFORGETTABLE CONCLUSION TO THE BELOVED PRACTICAL MAGIC SERIES For centuries, the Owens family has been cursed in matters of love. When...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Elsewhere:
    $2699
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Dovekeepers
    An ambitious and mesmerizing historical novel from the bestselling author of Rules of Magic. The Dovekeepers is "striking....Hoffman grounds her expansive, intricately woven, and deepest new novel in biblical history, with a devotion and seriousness of purpose" (Entertainment Weekly). Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain fortress...
    Paperback
    $5300
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • The Invisible Hour
    The latest New York Times bestseller from beloved author Alice Hoffman celebrates the enduring magic of books and is a "wonderful story of love and growth" (Stephen King). One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it...
    Paperback
    $5100
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • New Release
    Practical Magic 2
    For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620 when Maria Owens was abandoned by the man she loved and tried for witchcraft.Centuries later, in a library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seventy-eighty-year old Jet Owens hears the call of the deathwatch beetle, signaling that she has only seven days to live. She spends her final days with her...
    $2199
    Elsewhere:
    $2899
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Pre-order
    The Witches of Cambridge
    The brand-new series from the bestselling author of Practical Magic, following two brilliant young women in 1950s Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they become immersed in a mysterious secret group of witches at Radcliffe known as the Lilith Society. Once upon a time, women were drowned in the river and the only witnesses were the crows in the trees. The Puritans blamed...
    Hardback
    $8500
    Pre-order
    Out 8 Sep 2026

More from Travel & Adventure

View all
  • On Sale
    15% off
    The Salt Path
    The bestselling true story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey not of escape but salvation, soon to be a major motion picture starring Golden Globe winning Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With...
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Maintenance: Of Everything
    The first in-depth exploration of maintenance and a powerful argument for its civilisational importance from the author of How Buildings Learn and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. Maintenance is what keeps everything going. It's what keeps life going. Yet it's also easy to shirk or defer until the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops. The apparent paradox...
    Hardback
    $8700
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • Abroad in Japan
    The hilarious number one bestselling memoir from YouTube sensation Chris Broad, a Brit trying to assimilate into life in Japan as he unravels the wonders and eccentricities of one of the world's most mysterious cultures. When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan, he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the...
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Cat's Tales
    Once upon a time, the enchanting creature that is the cat infiltrated our lives – and our folklore. Cats have a long association with the supernatural – from being worshipped as gods in ancient Egypt to vilified as witches’ familiars in Europe – and they appear in countless fairy tales throughout history. Every part of the world has its own...
    Hardback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • On Sale
    13% off
    The Penguin Lessons
    Now a major film, this is the true story of an unlikely friendship between a flightless bird and a teacher out of his depth. When schoolteacher Tom Michell pulls a penguin from an oil slick off the coast of Uruguay, he has no idea what to do. Back at his apartment, Tom cleans him, but upon returning to the beach,...
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Rambling Man
    THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING HILARIOUS NEW BOOK FROM THE NATION'S FAVOURITE COMEDIAN, BILLY CONNOLLY "Being a Rambling Man was what I always wanted to be, to live the way I damn well pleased. I've met the weirdest and most wonderful people who walk the Earth, seen the most bizarre and the most fantastic sights - and I've rarely come across...
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Free Gift
    Lonely Planet Pocket Lisbon
    Lonely Planet's Pocket Lisbon is your guide to the city's best experiences and local life - neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Experience the city's most scenic tram routes, find the best pastéis de nata and discover the winding backstreets of Alfama; all with your trusted travel companion. Uncover the best of Lisbon and make the most of your trip! Inside Lonely Planet's...
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Cozy Bookshops: Colouring Book
    Cozy Bookshops—your ultimate escape into a world of bookish bliss and mindful relaxation in 46 adorable scenes, from the coziest book nooks. Wander labyrinthine bookshelves, sink into soft armchairs by roaring fireplaces, and lose yourself in snug, atmospheric corners. Escape, relax, and unwind with this colouring book for all skill levels and bring your own personality. The possibilities are endless!...
    Paperback
    $3500
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • Free Gift
    Lonely Planet Pocket Porto
    Lonely Planet's Pocket Porto is your guide to the city's best experiences and local life, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Experience the historic Se cathedral, marvel at the stunning Palacio da Bolsa, and visit peacocks in Jardim do Palacio de Cristal, all with your trusted travel companion. Uncover the best of Porto and make the most of your trip! Inside Lonely Planet's...
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Brilliant Maps
    With a foreword by Tim Harford Which nations have North Korean embassies? Which region has the highest number of death metal bands per capita? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the 'wrong' side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild? Revelatory, thought-provoking and fun, Brilliant Maps is a unique atlas...
    Paperback
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Free Gift
    Lonely Planet Norway
    Lonely Planet's local travel experts reveal all you need to know to plan the trip of a lifetime to Norway. Discover popular and off the beaten track experiences from watching walruses lolling and hunting in Borebukta to hiking in the remote causeway of Ekkerøy in Finnmark, and road tripping along the Lofoten Islands to admire villages replete with traditional fishing...
    Paperback
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • London: The Hidden Corners For Curious Wanderers
    From the alleyways of Soho to the medieval remains of Moorgate, the new book by Sunday Times bestselling author Jack Chesher takes you on a journey through London and its history, showing you its hidden corners. Explore the fascinating history of the city with the creator of the ever-popular @LivingLondonHistory. Have you ever wondered where a notorious Victorian murderer was...
    Hardback
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.