Claire Bessant

Despite what you may be thinking, this one isn't just another cat care book!

No, in fact, if you own a cat, I'd highly recommend you seek out this book and give it a read. I thought there wasn't really anything left for me to learn about cats (I've studied them obsessively since I was 7 years old... I used to take my enormous book of cat breeds and use a piece of paper to cover the breed labels while I turned the pages, in order to force myself to be able to recognize the various cat breeds show more on sight... heh... yes, I was 7 or 8 at the time and can STILL identify breeds on sight because of it)... but, this book taught me several new and very interesting things.

Without going into too much detail, in case you want to read and learn for yourself, Bessant spends a lot of time discussion cat communication, particularly cat-to-human communication. She identifies which vowels in a cat call are drawn out, depending on what the cat wants, and discusses things like tail positioning (which also indicates mood & is used to communicate). I'd never thought about tail positioning before, and thought this was fascinating.

There are a number of diagrams to complement certain chapters, and I found myself feeling far more appreciative of my cat's natural behaviors once I finished this book. I think it will help me to relate to my cat better, utilizing her natural habits & understanding, in order to create a better bond between us (and any future cats I might have).

The book reads easily and flows very well, and like I said, definitely isn't a 'cat care' book per se -- if you have a cat and would like to better understand her, here's an excellent place to start. show less

I expected this book to be very gimmicky but it really pleasantly surprised me. The author does an incredible job of describing a cat's senses and how cats physically perceive the world. She also shares a lot of fun facts about cats. For instance, cats can stand much warmer temperatures than humans. Humans start avoiding heat at 115F while cats aren't bothered until 126F. Apparently, the only parts of a cats body which are sensitive to heat are it's nose and upperlip, which it uses as a show more kitten to locate it's mother before it's eyes are open. She also talks a lot about why cats behave the way the do and gives some very good advice for dealing with nearly any behavior problem you might encounter. show less