8. Call of the Wild by Jack London

Not the version I read.

Ah vacation!  It is here where I consciously made an effort to jump start my reading again.  We rented a cabin a little ways out in the country.  It turned out to have wi-fi, but I brought no devices with me.  What's more, the weather complied and after three days of beautiful sunny lake weather, it rained for the entire rest of the week.  Actually kind of depressing, but we made the most of it including a lot of reading.
It started with The Call of the Wild.  My friend Mike gave me this book years ago, convinced I would love it and that it was a quick read.  I think precisely because it was so short, I kept putting it off.  There was also some trepidation about something bad happening to an animal.  Well now that I have completed I can confirm that he was right on.  It's a fantastic book and right up my alley.  I haven't read a ton of Jack London, but I loved the Sea Wolf and now that I've read this, I should probably read more of his stuff.
It's the story of a powerful but soft dog who is kidnapped from his California estate and sold to sled drivers in Alaska's gold rush.  The dog's core is powerful and wild.  Much of the book is about his struggle, but he slowly finds his true calling in the brutal and exhausting world of mining and transport in the North.  This is stirring stuff and London takes the idea as far as it can go.  The ending is almost supernatural.  A great read. I strongly recommend it.