“The Word of Dog” is the kind of book that may make your brain hurt, but in a good way.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer You had plenty of both and then, well, life and politics wedged an ocean-sized chasm between you and it makes you sad. And yet – are you really all that far apart? As in the new memoir, “Cleavage” by Jennifer Finney Boylan, maybe you’re still two peas in a pod. Photo by

By Terri Schlichenmeyer Mother knows best. At least that’s what she’d like you to think because she said it a hundred times while you were growing up, until you actually believed. One day, though, if you were lucky, you learned that Mother didn’t always know best, but she did her best – like in the

By Terri Schlichenmeyer Here’s what’ll happen: you’ll take a breath. Take another breath. And then you won’t. And that’ll be just the beginning of your end, a tsunami of shut-downs of brain and blood and body parts that will mark the end of your life. Other than that, well, what happens beyond your demise is