The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

This year's Spokane is Reading choice is the story of a dog who longs to be reincarnated as a man. The narrator, Enzo, is a philosophical and insightful dog, given to TV watching. He's highly anthropomorphized (having human characteristics ascribed to a non-human), though not in a syrupy, oh-so-sweet way. He believes he has the soul of a man and tries to behave humanly. He understands and realizes things that his human family does not, but, lacking the ability to speak, he is unable to tell them what they need to know. (He does suggest that a device like the one Steven Hawking had would remedy this, and fantasizes more than once about what he would say if only he could.) His voice is consistent throughout the story, as are those of the humans whose conversations he recounts. Weighing in at over 300 pages, the book is a fast read with short chapters.

Spoiler -- highlight to read spoilers: The dog dies, but the last chapter has a little boy with the same name, presumably Enzo reincarnated.