Posted by Anne M on Tuesday, Nov 5, 2013
Last month, I heard John Bradshaw on Fresh Air with Terry Gross explaining that cats do not necessarily sit on us for our warmth, they sit on us because we are friends. I liked the thought of this. I always believed that Gatsby (my cat) and I are in good standing, but can you ever really say you are friends with your cat? Well, I do, but I fully acknowledge that it is a complicated relationship. There are times I wouldn't argue with someone that says cats are only in it for the food.
Cat Sense, John Bradshaw's latest pet science book, doesn't just reinforce good feelings about having my cat around. He discusses the latest studies on cat behavior to explain some of their habits, provides advice on how to interpret whether cats are comfortable with their environment, and explains how to manage their undesirable innate behavior, such as the need to hunt or the inability to get along with other cats. Bradshaw is concerned that cats need to adapt to modern expectations. We want friendly cats who, for the most part, live indoors, leave songbirds alone, and coexist with other cats or with dogs in the home. And we are asking for this rather quickly. Bradshaw puts this in perspective by providing an interesting history of how the cat has evolved as one of our companions.
I'm pretty sure that Gatsby bears me no ill will seeing as how he seems to feel extremely safe when he sleeps as illustrated in the accompanying photograph.
If you are not a cat person, Bradshaw's previous book covered the same issues with dogs.
About the Author
Anne Mangano has worked for the Iowa City Public Library since 2008, serving as the Collection Services Coordinator since 2013. In this position, she oversees ICPL's collection, including the selection, cataloging, processing, repair, and removal of materials, including the library's digital collections. Anne holds a Bachelor of...
"Fallout" chronicles the writing of John Hersey's "Hiroshima," originally published in the August 31st, 1946 issue of "The New Yorker." The article chronicled the experiences of six survivors of the United States' dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. What is now seen as a standard text, assigned reading in many high schools, may never have been written. Hersey faced an uphill climb to report the story. There was the United States government and its limitations on where journalists could go and what they could report, as well as their denial of long-term health effects, such as radiation sickness. Also, how do you report this story to an American public that is ready to move on after a decade of war information? Every day they saw images of bomb-out cities and read statistics of the dead and the wounded in the newspapers. They spent years seeing the Japanese as an enemy. How could Hersey make this story resonate? Blume provides a fascinating account of how Hersey struck a chord. If you are a reader of "The New Yorker," this book provides great insight on the inner workings of the magazine during the 1940's. -Anne M