Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends

by Megan McMorris and Dashka Slater

Book Overview

Part diva, part purring furball, cats always keep you wondering. Are they happy to see you? Mad at the world? Cats are subtle little comics, rubbing against your legs when you'd forgotten they were in the room, purring in your ear in the middle of the night. What is it about these sly, droll, and unpredictable creatures that captivates us? And what's the deal with the whole crazy cat lady stereotype, anyway? From a tale about how rescuing a stray...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1580052037
• ISBN13: 9781580052030
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Seal Press (CA)
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Great collection of cat stories!

I picked this book up after I got my first cat, and saw myself in so many of these stories about how real women got their cats. O.K., they're not all "fluffy" stories but they are "real" people with real "cat" stories, and that's what makes it such a great read. This is a great collection! One women (like myself) went from 20 years of another pet, to a cat. Another women (also like me) went from a "non" cats are nasty pets houeshold, to becoming a cat person. Each story has a picture of the cat so you get to "see" who the story is really about. These are such great stories, I gave a copy to everyone in my family with a cat! I couldn't put it down! It is interesting that her last name is "Morris". LOL!

great summer read

If you love cats then this is the book for you! Very enjoyable and light. A series of delighful short essays by women writers about their cats. Many parts will have you laughing out loud. I loved it.

To Be A Cat Woman Again?

I picked up this book for a very specific reason: to help me decide if I wanted to become a cat woman again. It had been a few years since my two feline loves had moved on to that bottomless bowl of cat treats in the sky, and it seemed time to welcome a new meow into my life. To be sure, I wanted to revisit that special, mysterious, hard-to-articulate-without-sounding trite relationship that develops between felines and females without the risk of falling in love again. And for this purpose, the book deserves five stars. More than the evocative prose, the funny stories, the intimate details, hearing the range of feelings -- physical and emotional -- that cats have evoked in other women, helped me realize I wasn't yet willing to dive into a new relationship with even the prettiest kitty. Special thanks to Megan McMorris for her right-on introduciton and Sophia Dembling for an unforgettable opening essay. Jean Fain

Gives insight into a unique bond

I can not say enough about this book without almost gushing. I found this book "staring" at me one day only days after my Mistie had passed away. Reading other people's stories about their cats unique habits and unique personalities and the bond that was there for him made me feel comforted somehow during this grief period that I am experiencing. I loved all the essays to one degree or another but two top favorites were about a little man named Murphy aka Murph dawg and how he wedged himself a place in the heart of his owner's significant other and then the editor's. Megan McMorris, own essay on trying to get her Lucy and her boyfriend to find some common ground. If you want to read how cats can affect your life...this book is the perfect place to start.

Mysterious Cats and Women

To me, cats have always been as mysterious as women--they're elusive one moment, playful the next, and you never know what's going on behind those eyes--so I read this book in the hope that the pairing of the two species together would offer some insight, that like with mathematical signs, the shroud of mystery would be cancelled out when multiplied. I wasn't disappointed. There's a lot of variety in the essays, some humorous, some sad, but all very genuine. My favorites are "Strutting the Catwalk: Seven Habits of One Sexy Beast" by Jennifer Jalalat, which compares the innate sexiness in cats with female sexuality, and "Saved by the Cat" by Melinda J. Combs, which tells a tale of how saving a cat saved a friendship. I haven't read all the essays yet, but the ones I have are great, and while they haven't taken the mystery out of women or cats--nothing ever will (and I think I like it that way anyway)--there are a lot of insightful and touching moments.