Lauren Grodstein is the author of the Read with Jenna pick We Must Not Think of Ourselves, The Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything, and the New York Times-bestselling A Friend of the Family, among other works. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, children, and two large dogs, and is a professor of English at Rutgers University-Camden, where she directs the MFA program in creative writing.

"Heartwarming moments, vivid characters, wise insights... A Dog in Georgia has it all. . . . a journey of self-discovery and joy." --Woman's World, book club pick for August

Named a Best/Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Zibby Owens and New Jersey Monthly

"The pleasure of the novel is in watching Amy's transformation . . . readers will be transported."--Publishers Weekly

"Dog lovers (and all others) will find much pleasure in this charming story."--Library Journal

"A Dog in Georgia is a banger about rebooting your life... [an] education in what American life looks like from the outside."--Minnesota Star Tribune

"A novel that remains deeply funny even as it explores some of the darkest days in recent Caucasus history. Grodstein rejects the simple binaries that so often define Western writing about the former Soviet Union... A Dog in Georgia is proof that a hero's journey need not be haughty and that a political novel can be whimsical and bubbly. In a book ostensibly about animals, Grodstein instead probes the limits of human compassion."--Foreign Policy

"A New Yorker takes her identity crisis -- along with her love for animals -- abroad. . . . tart, emotionally attuned."--The New York Times Book Review

"Readers will fall in love with [Grodstein's] tenderly rendered characters, all of them (like all of us) a bit messy.

"[A] perfectly... magnificently... intricately crafted story of a woman on a mission that becomes a greater journey than she could have imagined... You won't forget Amy or the dogs. But you especially won't forget the people of Georgia, their love for their dogs, and their desperate love of freedom, as well as the futility of protesting Russia's iron fist. Is that futility, in all too many ways, a warning of what may be coming to America?"--Bookreporter.com

"A Dog in Georgia is a story of self-reflection and self-reclamation, as well as an exploration of the human connections and fulfillments one can find in places one never thought imaginable. But it is also a fictional rallying cry -- one that can be heard by any concerned American citizen paying attention to America's ongoing political spiral. It is both refreshing and necessary -- for dog lovers and the politically-minded alike."--Southern Review of Books