W. Cameron: Hi, I'm W. Bruce Cameron and I am the author of "A Dog's Purpose". I'm gonna tell you how that got written. I was driving up the coast of California with a woman that I had started to date and I was getting kind of serious about our relationship, but then she turns to me and she says, "I can never have another dog." Because see, she had just lost her dog and she had never had a dog as a child. This was the first time she had had that horrible day that you have when you lose your best friend. And so, her solution was to never have another dog. That didn't work for me because I have always had dogs and I couldn't imagine a life without a dog.

So, I decided to tell her a story. I thought if I tell her a story, I will convince her that the one thing her dog would've wanted was for her to get another dog. I told her the story of a dog who reincarnates and remembers each life, and it worked. We got another dog and the story eventually became the book "A Dog's Purpose". And I will read to you an excerpt from that book right now.

One day toward the very end of summer it was colder than usual and we were out in the boat, Ethan wearing a hood that was attached to his shirt at the neck. And suddenly he jumped up. "I've got a big one, Bailey. A big one." I responded to his excitement leaping to my feet and barking. He wrestled with his rod for more than a minute, grinning and laughing, and then I saw it, a fish the size of a cat coming to the surface right next to our boat. Ethan and I both leaned forward to see it. The boat rocked and then with a yell the boy fell overboard.

I leaped to the side of the boat and stared down into the dark creek water. I could see the boy vanishing from site and the bubbles rising to the surface carried his scent to me, but he showed no signs of resurfacing. I didn't hesitate. I dove right in after him. My eyes open as I pushed against the water and struggled to follow the trail of bubbles down into the cold darkness.

I couldn't see much of anything down there in the water, which pressed against my ears and slowed my desperate descent. I could sense the boy, though, sinking slowly ahead of me. I swam even harder, finally catching a blurry site of him. It was almost like my first vision of my mother, a smeared image in murky shadows. I lunged, jaws open, and when I was right up to him I was able to seize the lid of his sweatshirt in my mouth. I lifted my head and dragging him with me, rose as quickly as I could toward the sunlit surface of the pond.