Bland and boring: Cat Lover's Companion

     [Project Team]. Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: Cat Lover’s Companion (2006) The Bathroom Readers began as edgy, often rude, eclectic collections loosely related to some theme. I emphasise loosely. Fun reads, excellent potato chip books. This one lacks the edginess, doesn’t roam into “that reminds me” territory, and tells not only bland but useful stories. I found it at a Value Village, and should have left it there. *

Cats versus Rats

    Margaret Atwood, Johnnie Christmas, Tamara Bonvillain. Angel Catbird (2016) Well done pulp comic book fiction printed on nice book-weight glossy paper, including making-of material such as Christmas’s trial sketches of the main character, Strig Feleedus. He’s a nerdy biologist trying to perfect a genetic splicing drug.  Dr Mucoid, his evil villain boss, who want it to create a half-rat army, does a hit’n’run on him, which breaks the vial with the drug, which gets into his blood, along with some blood from his cat and an unfortunate owl. Hence Angel Catbird, a half-cat human with a dash of owl. A lovely succession of riffs on super-hero comics ensues. It'a all about cats versus rats. The script was written by Atwood, drawn by Christmas, and coloured by Bonvillain.
     Recommended. This is volume 1. Look for Volume 2 in February, and read it too. The book was shelved a Young Adult in our local library, which it’s not. ****

It's not about the cats

     Rebecca M. Hale. How to Wash a Cat (2008) Somebody should have edited this book. The author apparently used a thesaurus. Bad idea: If you don’t already know how to use a word, the thesaurus’s “synonyms” designation will mislead you. Hale apparently also wanted to create a complete first-person experience for the reader, for there are unnecessary adverbs and adjectives everywhere. The result is dilatory narration and irritating weirdness.
     The story begins with the death of the narrator’s uncle Oscar, a supposedly-lovable grump with a fixation on San Francisco Gold Rush history. The narrator inherits his antique store, and a historical puzzle. The mcguffin is a potion that mimics death, with possible therapeutic value; and a cache of diamonds. Many people want one or both. The narrator figures it out, trailing well behind the reader. Tunnels, veiled warnings, mysteriously unexplained help from strangers, etc, add melodrama. Hale (unfairly) IMO withholds information about some of the characters, the denouement contains a couple of surprises as well as solutions. Two cats wander around the story and the antique store.
     There’s a decent book inside this over-wrought mess. Trimming away about a third of the verbiage would have made this so-so book into a very good one. I think Hale self-published (via Green Vase Publishing – a green vase figures in the store-front renovation), and good sales prompted Penguin to buy the paperback rights. The book was a best-seller, I think because of the cats. It’s the first of a four book series; I trust that Hale had editors for the other three books. *½

For cat fanciers.

     [Quantum Books] Cats: A Pocket Companion (1998) A nice little reference book illustrating many breed of cats, with data about origin, conformation, colours, personality, etc. Useful in a limited way, well produced and printed, no typos. A “gift book”, found in a secondhand shop. It confirms my feeling that mixed-breed cats (for which we don’t have a word) will make the best pets. The effects of cat fanciers’ tastes on breed looks and conformation is looking to be as bad as on dogs. As near as I can figure out, our Alex was an American Shorthair and Siamese cross, mostly. He was a good cat. **

Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Cat on the Edge (1996)

     Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Cat on the Edge (1996) I didn’t finish this book. The premise is interesting: a cat that has witnessed murder develops the ability to not only understand human speech, but also to speak and read (but he does have trouble with alphabetic sequence). I like cats, so this premise promised entertainment. But at the quarter mark, we are still reading set up and back story. This leisurely pace seems intended to pile on enough detail to make the story believable, but its effect is the opposite. In books as in movies, believability is increased by narrative speed and by omission of pesky details, the kind that prompt questions such as How does the cat get the books down from the shelf? Realistic narratives assume readers’ background knowledge; a fantasy must do the same. Tell the story as if it were the most natural thing in the world; don’t dwell on the incredible or implausible, and thereby raise people’s doubts. So while the first dozen-odd pages engaged me, by page 70 I didn’t care anymore. (2008)