I just finished reading A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron and loved it so much, I knew an author spotlight had to be featured on our website!
A hilarious writer, Cameron is the author of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter which after it’s popular reception became a hit TV show. Also the author of How To Remodel a Man and 8 Simple Rules for Marrying My Daughter, Cameron’s writing is laugh out loud funny and hard to put down.
Good things are worth waiting for and Cameron certainly did his share of waiting before becoming a New York Times Bestselling author. After writing eight unpublished novels, he decided to write something for himself instead of to get published. In Cameron’s own words (from his website):
As I wrote it, I found something interesting: it was funny. Apparently, when I stopped writing to sell and just wrote from my own voice, it made me laugh. Also in 1995 I started an on-line Internet column. I began it with six subscribers, four of whom were related to me or were me. I asked people to pass it along to others if they liked it, and they did. At its peak, the Cameron Column had 40,000 subscribers in 52 countries, if you count Texas as a country.
Meanwhile, Oliver North took an interest in 8 Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter and it was later co-developed by Disney as a feature film and a TV show. The screenplay was picking up momentum until the tragic death of John Ritter when progress came to a hault.
If you haven’t already seen my review on A Dog’s Purpose, check it out and then get the book! W. Bruce Cameron has even created a website (www.adogspurpose.com) where you can enter YOUR beloved pup in the Dog of the Week contests. How did he come up with the idea for A Dog’s Purpose? Taken from his website:
I was probably 8 years old, playing in the back yard of our house in Prairie Village, KS, when my dad opened the gate and in rushed a 9-week-old Labrador puppy. I fell to my knees and spread my arms and that dog leaped into them as if we had loved each other our whole lives. It’s a scene that shows up in A Dog’s Purpose—a puppy and a boy meeting each other the very first time, both of them full of unrestrained joy.
We named the dog Cammie. She arrived in my life when I was just beginning to connect some of the dots in my memory to make a picture of who I was, forming my identity as a child. I remember every skinned knee and bicycle ride in the context of Cammie, who was always there for me. And I lost her just as I was starting to leave childhood behind, passing on after I’d spent a year in college. That’s Cammie, the dog of my childhood.
Years later I was riding my bicycle in the mountains outside of Pine, CO. A chance decision to bounce down a dirt road led me past a few scattered ranches and one small house near a creek, set back from the road at least 50 yards. A single “woof” from a dog caught my attention, and I braked and stood in the dry, clear air, regarding the dog who had called out to me.
She was on a chain by the house, and a fence stood between us, so I remained on the road even though I could see that the dog, a black lab mix with a crazily active tail, was clearly friendly. I gazed at her and the dog sat, attentive, staring into my eyes exactly the way my first dog, Cammie, used to look at me, really seeing into me.
And that’s when the thought hit me. What if this wonderful dog was Cammie? What if dogs live over and over again, and always remember us?
I dismissed the thought, waved at the dog, and rode away, but days later the idea came back to me. What if?
W. Bruce Cameron has become a new favorite author and I look forward to reading his future materials, joining the Cameron Column mailing list, and looking for any book tour dates in our area.
Happy reading,
Fabookulous
Year of the Bookwormz: 2011 
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