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Walking the Dog
Walking the Dog
Jul 5, 2025 11:19 AM

Author:David Hughes

Walking the Dog

Approaching fifty, and warned by his doctor that he's drinking too much and needs to take more exercise, David Hughes is given a dog for his birthday - Dexter, a wire-haired fox terrier.

Hughes' daily walks with Dexter form the spine of Walking the Dog. We eavesdrop on their encounters with fellow dog-walkers ('Hello Hector', 'Hello Chester'...) and on Hughes' thoughts as he plods along carrying a plastic bag of poo. He begins to remember moments from his past, dark memories of murder and violence. He explores his own fantasies and obsessions. From the gentle comedy of the early pages, Walking the Dog is transformed into something deeper and more disturbing.

This will be a landmark book in the field of graphic literature. The drawing is sublime, the imagination extraordinary, the ambition unequalled.

Reviews

Lia's pages are innovative and varied... compulsively readable

—— Guardian

Simone Lia transforms what at first looks like another of her appealing children's books into an unpredictable and reflective human drama, while never losing her childlike playfulness... The result is a unique parable about the loving bunny inside us all

—— Daily Telegraph

A humorous, beautiful tale about love, anxiety and adventure

—— City A.M

Engaging and timely, a rich brew of celebrity, menace, media-spin and human cloning.

—— Posy Simmonds

Uneducated, pliant, easy to control - that's how our rulers want us. But in Hannah Berry's dark tale of celebrity and corporate greed, the people have other ideas. A parable for the Trump era.

—— Paul Mason

As sharp as Taylor Swift's marketing team, Berry slices through the info-celeb news nexus. Bloody funny.

—— Denise Mina

Hannah Berry’s new graphic novel Livestock is furious and funny, angry and amused by its own anger. It’s a future vision of a time when politics and celebrity are fused even more than they are today, when political spin is even more amoral and embedded than it is now.

—— Teddy Jamieson , Herald Scotland

This sharp satire, almost a little too on the nose by the time of publication, takes a populace easily distracted by celebrity culture to its logical extreme… With the understated, chilling final images, this book left me alternating between being entertained and disquieted...buy this now while it can still be described as a work of fiction.

—— Pete Redrup , Quietus

Hannah Berry’s stunning artwork is painstakingly meticulous and her narratives are always thought-provoking and playful.

—— Cath Tate and Nicola Street , i

This memoir’s realisation of urgency expresses itself in human beings’ silence, which might frustrate readers of prose memoir. But here it is an opportunity for Radtke’s readers to focus, stare, wonder – to remain within urgency itself... This is a riveting use of memoir.

—— Sarah Heston , Los Angeles Review of Books

In her exquisitely soul-, mind-, and heart-shattering debut graphic memoir, Kristen Radtke explores life's big questions surrounding grief, mortality, and the impermanence of the things – and the people – we love most.

—— Nylon

Radtke's life – and the way she beautifully elevates her deeply personal experiences into universal lessons – makes for brilliant, compelling, unforgettable art.

—— Bustle

Kristen Radtke leads us through a bleak and beautifully crafted story of heart and heartbreak – creation, connection, decay, and loss. Imagine Wanting Only This is challenging and inspiring.

—— Ellen Forney, New York Times bestselling author of MARBLES

Writer, illustrator, and editor Radtke’s graphic memoir does something difficult within just a few minimally designed, emotional pages: she transforms the over-studied experience of being a talented artist stuck in that yearning gulf between college’s purpose and life’s demands into something unique and thuddingly real.

—— Publishers Weekly
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