Jon Katz is again writing about his life on the appropriately named Bedlam Farm in upstate New York, where he is in residence with goats, chickens, a rooster, sheep, barn cats, a steer named Elvis and his dogs, his wonderful dogs, in Izzy & Lenore: Two Dogs, An Unexpected Journey and Me.

Still grieving the loss of Orson, a mad border collie he was never able to trust, Katz rescues another border collie, Izzy, but one with a quite remarkable disposition. Together, they become hospice volunteers and, while Katz sits back and watches, Izzy finds a way to quiet and comfort the dying.

Katz is on his own dark journey, through depression, and it is the arrival of Lenore, a rambunctious, loving and lovable lab, that allows Katz to begin to find his way out of the darkness.

Katz has a tendency to overwrite and to ascribe thoughts, talents and motives to dogs that they might not really possess. But it is a pleasure to imagine yourself on Bedlam Farm with all the animals that come so richly to life under Katz' pen.

Tom Strechschulte narrates, as he has some of Katz other books, and he has the perfect timber and the perfect sardonism for the task.

It is winter on Bedlam Farm, just as it is here. But it is more fun to be there, through the magic of audiobooks, than to be here.