Susan Orlean

Followers of Susan Orlean’s Twitter feed won’t be surprised to learn she’s written a book about a dog. Her enthusiasm for animals is evident in the many pictures she posts of the various guinea fowl, Black Angus cattle, and ducks that populate her upstate New York farm. What might be a surprise, however, is how Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend (Simon & Schuster, $26.99), her sweeping account of America’s first canine movie star, manages to maintain its momentum for nearly 300 pages. Nominally about the German Shepherd that saved Warner Bros.—when the studio hit a rough patch, its solution was to release another profitable Rin Tin Tin movie—Orlean’s book also explores the human-animal bond, the rise of Hollywood, and the role of dogs in battle (the original Rin Tin Tin was adopted by an American doughboy during World War I), all with the personal observations familiar from The New Yorker and The Orchid Thief. (Note: This event also includes TV clips and a screening of the 1925 silent film Clash of the Wolves.) CALEB HANNAN

Fri., Oct. 28, 7 p.m., 2011