The chapter about toxoplasmosis was very disturbing.

A delightful and even funny look at the history of house cats.

A very interesting book crammed with facts, disabusing me of many misguided notions about our feline brothers and sisters. I think the miracle of our species union is more evident than ever. We must acknowledge our subservience.

Solidifies my status as cat lady, but this is a great and super interesting read! Scientific and historical and totally readable by even non-cat lady types. A bit of a random read and thus my expectations were low so it was a really great surprise to enjoy this a lot.

As a cat lover, I've been meaning to read this book for some time, and although it wasn't everything that I was hoping for, I still enjoyed it. I thought that it covered a broad range of cat-related topics, and I learned quite a bit from it. I've talked about the bits that I learned about the domestication of cats in a couple of situations since reading that chapter, and I've certainly thought a lot about what I learned about the predatory habits of cats. Just for those sections, I would say that the book was worth reading for me.

I did think that the beginning parts were better than the later bits, though. Too often as the book progressed, I felt like Tucker was trying to take the controversial and less popular views, and although she cited scientific studies throughout the book, I sometimes felt like the conclusions that she was drawing were beyond the scope of the actual studies. Perhaps this is just a mirror of the studies themselves, as they certainly could be emphasizing the negative, with Tucker just following along for the ride, but it got a little wearying, and I often found myself stopping to argue with the book. I won't say that I'm a scientist by any stretch, but I at least have enough scientific training to recognize when a conclusion is just beyond the scope of whatever study was done, either because of methodology or lack of data or inconsistencies in the data. I guess I wanted Tucker to venture a bit more criticism of the studies that have been done, so her impartial style wounded my cat-loving sensibilities a bit. Still, I thought she did a decent job of attempting to present the research in an impartial manner, and I can't criticize that too much.

There was one part of the book that I did actively disagree with, though. This was the section where she talks about indoor cats as a phenomenon. I think she was just attempting to play the devil's advocate in this section and make people think about the way that we treat our pets, but I found the bleak picture that she painted of indoor life to be completely inaccurate to my experience. I have two indoor cats, and there's nothing you can say to convince me that they are miserable, that they don't love me, and that they don't enjoy each other's company. They play and nap together, greet me when I come home, cuddle with both myself and my husband, play with their modest collection of toys, and show every sign of enjoying their food. They also most certainly recognize and return my affection for them, so I kind of resent any implication that all of these things cannot possibly be true, and I really wish that she had presented a more balanced view on this particular issue.

Still, despite my criticisms, I did enjoy the the book, and I definitely learned a lot. I would just advise anyone who reads to take what they find within with a grain of salt. As Tucker herself acknowledges, cats have been under-researched. The science may point one way right now, but it takes an entire body research to draw a conclusion, and we don't quite have that yet.

Very interesting book!

An insightful and entertaining look at why my 9 month old cat thinks he is the boss of the family.