Shelf-life: Books Abounding Part 8: Cats

This is Tiberius Wookie-Paws (Tibby Bean). I love him more than almost everything else in the world.

I think the fact that people managed to domesticate cats is amazing. I like to imagine the early versions of this. Did our ancestors steal kittens from large, predatory cats? Or did cats start slinking around to take advantage of scraps - then just move in? However it happened, I consider it a real privilege to share my life with half a dozen distinct cat personalities, from my regal Russian blue to the delicate shadow-grey Samantha, to goofy, roly-poly Peeg! And since these furry darlings share my life, my food, my reading space, and my bed, it only seems appropriate that they should have a title or seven on the bookshelf!

I have a few scans from this book from my dissertation days, but I ended up needing more than that for the chapter I'm writing about tigers in literature. Thankfully, my wonderful husband was able to get me a copy through interlibrary loan. Now if I just had more time to sit down and actually do the research I need to do...

Aside from the works of Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon, I'm not a fan of short stories. However, an internet post about "best cats in literature" led me to discover these two titles. If anything can win me over to a genre, it's cats!







In this science fiction piece, cats help humans to pilot starships. Sounds like a great match to me! Rasputin road on my lap to the vet today, and I think he gave the steering wheel an interested glance or two!




I was drawn to this work for two reasons: (1.) it's advertised as "the first English novel" and it never came up in either my undergraduate or graduate classes and (2.) talking cats!

I found this title during one of my annual search-for-big-cat-books on Amazon and was excited to see that it's enormous (over 500 pages) and it's never previously come up in my research!

Panther came to my attention because it apparently caused some controversy when first published (something about the depiction of the animal and its effect on young readers) so I'm eager to add it to the big-cats-in-literature shelf!




There are very few positive books about wildlife, so when I saw that a book was going to be published that focused on the mountain lion's resilience, I was delighted to push the pre-order button!

I'm so excited about the publication of this slim, unique (and expensive!) title! Mountain lion books are proliferating this year!

I found both of these titles during my search for cats in literature. Both titles deal with life aboard ships and both feature cats as part of their crews!







In this book, a history teacher lives out the nine lives of cat!








A visiting stray brings a sense of spring to a wilting relationship in this slender work!

A timely work given the events with Cecil, this book looks at canned hunting in South Africa.

This YA offering features a cat venturing into the world for the first time. He's a Mesopotamian Blue rather than a Russian Blue like my beloved Razzle - but close enough!