As a reminder, I am reviewing one book each day until Christmas, in no particular order.
Each choice is special in its own way. All would make great gifts for your cat addicted book lovers. Or your book addicted cat lovers.
Why cat books? Several reasons, really. I adore cats. Cats appear in most of my fiction. And I enjoy promoting cat books for the holidays, because I frequently give or get them as gifts myself. And finally, so many people have a cat, that cat themed gifts are an industry. You can’t go wrong.
Today I am reviewing “I Could Pee on This, and Other Poems by Cats,” the New York Times bestseller by Francesco Marciuliano, who authored the Sally Forth comics, among other projects.
Marciuliano is an expert at humor, and has chosen to channel cats to hilarious effect in this adorable book. If cats wrote poetry, I am sure it would look like this. The poems make curious sense when taken from the feline perspective.
Does your cat lick obsessively? Then “I lick,” will expound on that process, if not the why behind it. This poem is accompanied by a photo of a gray cat with leg extended over its head, licking it’s heel. Has your cat destroyed a toy within minutes of getting it? (Seriously, my cat Tess skinned a catnip toucan – basically a chirping box covered in faux fur – in 90 seconds or so.) Then the “Elegy for a Toy I Broke,” will explain your cat’s angst. Has your cat ever looked you in the eye and pushed something off a table or counter? If you have a cat, I will assume the answer is yes. “Nudge,” is the poem that gives you insight into this behavior. Hint – from the poem, it appears they do it because they can.
There are four sections in the book. There are poems on Family, Work, Play, and Existence. Family, of course, includes “I Could Pee on This,” where this could be any number of things. Work includes “Your Keyboard,” which is pointedly incomprehensible. Play includes “Tiny Boxes.” If you’ve seen a cat with cardboard, your imagination is on the right track. Existence includes “Just the Two of Us,” which is about intense cat stares. There are many more.
This book is tiny in it’s dimensions, so you really could stuff it in a stocking. If you hit the bookstore tomorrow before it closes, you can pick it up in time to do so. At 111 pages, it has a lot of fun poems to make you smirk and give your cat a sideways glance. There are quite a few cute photos too. It’s a great little package.
As a writer, I find this book inspiring. Someday I want to write poems by cats and publish them. If you count my cat’s poetical posts on his Petzbe account, I have a little bit of a start, but this book encourages me that there’s a market for cat poetry if it is well done, and that my dream isn’t that far out.
Cat lovers will get a kick out of this one. Hit the bookstore tomorrow. You won’t regret it.
I’
