THE DOGS OF AVALON has been in my bookcase for years, and I don't know why it has taken me so long to get to it. It shouldn't have. This is an excellent book of nonfiction that anyone who cares about animals would appreciate.

Laura Schenone, the author, is not an animal advocate and, she says, is not even an animal lover. But when she adopted a family dog that was partly greyhound, she came to know Marion Fitzgibbon, a woman in Ireland who was devoting her life to the treatment of greyhound dogs there. THE DOGS OF AVALON is mostly about Fitzgibbon, where her concerns began and how and why they continued.

The book is also, in smaller part, about other people and their fights for humane treatment of animals. Some of these people worked with Fitzgibbon, others were people Schenone encountered. Many of them were caretakers of other animals as well.

THE DOGS OF AVALON might be difficult for some to read, especially when Schenone describes the way some animals are forced to live, their mistreatment. But please read it. It is what more people should be aware of.