They’re everywhere we look. Roaming from back yards to back alleys, lush forests and jungles to sprawling urban jungles, living rooms, and the internet. Cats are abundant these days. Unfortunately, the big cat population is in rapid decline across the globe. The cats I write off are the smaller cousins to the larger lions and tigers. Yes, the house cat, though you can also find them outside on the prowl. I’m a cat person, so why not read a book about cats? A new one on the shelf at my local library is Abigail Tucker’s 2016 release. The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World held the promise of a history book. The promise held true, but not in the way I expected. It’s a New York Times bestseller, but I wouldn’t recommend the buy. I don’t even recommend giving it a read...

To read the rest of this review go to https://drewmartinwrites.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/the-lion-in-the-living-room-2016-review/

A different book than I thought it would be.

At times it made me feel really bad for our pet cats because they are trapped inside with little to do and can't hunt like they're meant to, and thousands of cats are euthanized because there are just too many of them. To think that outdoor and feral cats contribute to the extinction or threatening of so many species (especially in Australia), and that countries and agencies go great lengths to kill them is really sad. Tucker writes that "human reverence and disregard have a dangerous way of coexisting, especially where animals are concerned" and that "no matter how much we 'love' something, it's never beyond us to destroy it" when they're not convenient to live with. Or the weird fact that I've heard before that cats can transmit the "cat parasite" to us, which some think affects our brains.

But this book also makes me remember why I adore cats so much. They are unique creatures that really haven't changed that much from their wild ancestors. Even though we "domesticated" them, they are still wild creatures that truly tame *us* humans with their meows and their snuggles. And the fact that cats are actually the #1 pet in America...take that dog owners!

I'm very glad I read this book-- as a cat owner, it succeeded in its goal of making me look at my living room lion (though mine is more panther) in a new way. Learning about the differences between the relatively recent and incomplete 'domestication' of cats compared with other common pets was very eye-opening, and it's fascinating to really understand that the genetics of the common 'house' cat have not changed much, if at all, from their more wild direct ancestor.

The only part of the book that made me feel less than hooked was when Tucker tried to contextualize the biology of cats and our human love for them in the world of the internet, memes, and LOLcats-- maybe I'm a snooty Millenial, but it smelled of too much trying to pander and a bit 'How do you do, fellow kids,' to put it in meme terms.

Other than that, I would highly recommend this book to not only (but also especially) cat owners and lovers, but anyone with even a passing Darwinian interest in evolutionary biology.