Author dean koontz talks turning 80 and how a dog changed his life | members only

DOES HAVING A DOG HELP KEEP YOU PHYSICALLY ACTIVE? To a degree. It always depends on the dog. The first two [Trixie and Anna] would walk any distance, miles and miles, and want to keep on

going. Elsa will walk about four blocks, and then she turns around and looks at you, and sits down in what we call “bucket bottom,” because it’s like a bucket full of concrete — you can’t

move her. Then she won’t go anywhere but back home. So she’s not a big walking dog. But they keep you active anyway just playing with them. If Elsa didn’t want to walk that day, I walk

anyway. I used to lift weights, but that’s 30 years in the past. All my friends [who] have played golf or have run marathons, all of their knees and hips are ruined. I think it’s good that

I’ve been just a walker. I READ YOU RECENTLY HAD CULLED YOUR OWN LIBRARY DOWN TO 20,000 BOOKS. Yeah, it once was way over 50,000. Finally, we moved and we were going into — it’s not a small

house, but it’s smaller. My wife said, “You keep all these books that you bought and you couldn’t read because you said they weren’t well written, and yet here they are on the shelf.” And I

said, “Yeah, because I always want to have an example of how you don’t do something.” And as I heard myself talk, I realized how silly that was. So I started getting rid of the books that I

couldn’t read. And that amounted to quite a few, actually. HOW DO YOU STORE 20,000 BOOKS? Well, in the current house, they had an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, and I thought, _that’s kind

of ridiculously redundant_. And secondly, the interior smells like chlorine. So we took out the indoor pool and made it into a library. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK IN THE COLLECTION? Oh,

there’s so many favorite books, but I think the one I’m most pleased with was many, many years ago when I started collecting hardcovers. We could buy a new hardcover, but we couldn’t afford

going back in time and buying ones that had become collectible. And yet, I saw a first edition of _The Maltese Falcon_. Price was $250. I talked my wife into it. I said, “This will go

nowhere but appreciate in value. It’s a pristine copy, and it’ll be a great investment.” She said, “Yeah, the problem is, with books, if you make an investment, you’ll never sell them.” She

was quite right. But I paid $250 for that [book], and I saw an equivalent copy go for $25,000 at a recent auction. So it was a good investment, but she’s right — I won’t sell it.