Leigh W. Rutledge
Author of Gay Book Of Lists
About the Author
Leigh Rutledge is the author of 14 books. He has been collecting memorable movie lines since the age of 9, when his mother dragged him to see a double feature of The Oscar and Madame X.
Works by Leigh W. Rutledge
Diary of a Cat: True Confessions and Lifelong Observations of a Well-Adjusted House Cat (1995) 82 copies, 4 reviews
The Left-Hander's Guide to Life: A Witty and Informative Tour of the World According to Southpaws (Plume) (1992) 41 copies
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1957
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- author
photographer
artist - Short biography
- [from Amazon website]
Leigh Rutledge pretty much grew up in his mother's bookstore in Saratoga, California, where he voraciously read everything from Snoopy Come Home to James Joyce and Agatha Christie. In the years since, he has lived in Reno, the Florida Keys, England, Los Angeles, and southern Colorado. During his younger years, he shared his home with 30 housecats -- all abused or abandoned animals -- as well as three dogs, a pet wolf, two goats, and a pet skunk. He currently shares his Vermont home with six cats: Pumpkin, Pretty Kitty, Dodger, Raven, Baby, and Dylan. However, his garden (which is the subject of much town gossip) is reigned over by the blue jays, chipmunks, bumblebees, and sparrows. He works primarily now as a successful photographer and artist. His books have been translated into half-a-dozen or so languages. - Places of residence
- Key West, Florida, USA
Saratoga, California, USA
Reno, Nevada, USA
England, UK
Los Angeles, California, USA
Colorado, USA (show all 7)
Vermont, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
A short collection of doggerel -- uh, catterel? -- about what the world would be like if people were more like cats. It's fairly cute, mostly without going too far towards being cutesy, although it's sometimes a near thing.
A sample:
If people were cats
The hairdresser's job
Would not be to give you
A perm or a bob
Instead the salon
is where you'd be seen
Having your hair
Licked wonderfully clean.
A sample:
If people were cats
The hairdresser's job
Would not be to give you
A perm or a bob
Instead the salon
is where you'd be seen
Having your hair
Licked wonderfully clean.
I discovered this petite treasure in my library's bookstore. Even the volunteer clerk and her friend joked about slipping this into their pockets while I wasn't looking.
The story goes is that the author overheard a mother cat instructing her kittens about life, and this book is a collection of those instructions, plus sketches of a black cat (my own?) following them.
My personal favorite, which also applies to humans, is lesson 40: "Learn the difference between idleness and repose--one wastes show more time, the other luxuriates in it."
I learned that my mom and her cat are not unique and "chasing a pingpong ball around the tub" is in fact one of the "three best late-night activities."
Some advice most cats adhere to, others I wish mine would adhere to. Many us humans ought to follow. This is a book for everyone! show less
The story goes is that the author overheard a mother cat instructing her kittens about life, and this book is a collection of those instructions, plus sketches of a black cat (my own?) following them.
My personal favorite, which also applies to humans, is lesson 40: "Learn the difference between idleness and repose--one wastes show more time, the other luxuriates in it."
I learned that my mom and her cat are not unique and "chasing a pingpong ball around the tub" is in fact one of the "three best late-night activities."
Some advice most cats adhere to, others I wish mine would adhere to. Many us humans ought to follow. This is a book for everyone! show less
Diary of a Cat: True Confessions and Lifelong Observations of a Well-Adjusted House Cat by Leigh W. Rutledge
At first glance, Leigh W. Rutledge’s Diary of a Cat appears to be just another overly cute, overly sentimental animal story, and to a certain degree the book lives up to that initial impression. As you might expect, the story is filled with the requisite endearing house pet high jinks, and between the surprisingly articulate feline narrator, the mischievous kitten Bobbie Boop, and the skinny stray Zachary, there is plenty of cuteness to go around.
However, Rutledge does inject a dose of show more harsh reality into his feline fantasy: parents and teenage children argue bitterly, a small boy cowers before his domineering father, a women suffers a debilitating stroke. There is even, as befits a story from the author of The Gay Book of Lists , a neighborhood house peopled by two men who are presumably a couple but who seem to enjoy an open relationship (Mr. Fielding’s upcoming trip is slyly characterized as both business and pleasure by his companion Mr. Butler).
On the other hand, this realism is mitigated by a highly unrealistic plot twist involving an unpleasant elderly woman and a ferocious dog - but then again, the reader is told the story via a narration purportedly written by a cat, so it doesn’t pay to get too picky about just how much disbelief to suspend.
All in all, Diary of a Cat rises just above more run-of-the-mill examples of its genre in celebrating the bond between humans and their animal companions. show less
However, Rutledge does inject a dose of show more harsh reality into his feline fantasy: parents and teenage children argue bitterly, a small boy cowers before his domineering father, a women suffers a debilitating stroke. There is even, as befits a story from the author of The Gay Book of Lists , a neighborhood house peopled by two men who are presumably a couple but who seem to enjoy an open relationship (Mr. Fielding’s upcoming trip is slyly characterized as both business and pleasure by his companion Mr. Butler).
On the other hand, this realism is mitigated by a highly unrealistic plot twist involving an unpleasant elderly woman and a ferocious dog - but then again, the reader is told the story via a narration purportedly written by a cat, so it doesn’t pay to get too picky about just how much disbelief to suspend.
All in all, Diary of a Cat rises just above more run-of-the-mill examples of its genre in celebrating the bond between humans and their animal companions. show less
Although now a little dated, this is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad and often poignant look at various aspects of being gay, and more importantly, some of the more important gay men throughout history.
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Statistics
- Works
- 27
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 1,156
- Popularity
- #22,230
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 18
- ISBNs
- 37
- Languages
- 3
- Favorited
- 1