Were you to cross George Howe Colt's recent classic, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home, with John Grogan's beloved Marley & Me, you might end up with what Brenda Gilchrist has created in Waltzing With Bracey: A Long Reach Home.

In this brave and thoughtful memoir, Gilchrist tells the story of learning to claim her place in the world--Deer Isle, Maine--and the wonderfully bossy little corgi, Bracey, who helps her to do so. After a girlhood spent abroad in various world capitals, Gilchrist has never felt entirely at home anywhere, or indeed, particularly...