February 2022 RandomKit

For this month’s RandomKit we are going to read a “cat.” That’s right, read a book which includes a feline. The cat needs to play a part in the story, even if it’s not the main event. This book can be fiction or non-fiction. Remember, there are many types of “cats”: house cats, alley cats, lions, tigers, jaguars, pumas, lynx, etc.

As a last resort, read a book with the word cat in its title or a picture of a cat on the cover.

Please let us know what you are going to read and any suggestions you may have and don't forget the Wiki here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/RandomKIT_2022

But most of all: ENJOY!



Cats in fiction:
Tailchaser’s Song
The Guest Cat
The Cat in the Hat
How To Tell if your Cat is Plotting to Kill You
The Dalai Lama’s Cat
The Cat Who? Series of 29 books featuring a detective and his Siamese cats
The Cat Who Saved Books
The Master and the Margarita
The Tiger’s Wife
The Jungle Book
The Life of Pi
The Incredible Journey
Varjak Paw
Guardian Cats and the Lost Books of Alexandria
Solomon’s Tale

Cats in Non-Fiction
The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (poems)
Dewey The Library Cat: A True Story
The Cat Inside
Born Free
Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma: The True Story of an Orphaned Cub
Great Soul of Siberia: Passion, Obsession, and One Man's Quest for the World's Most Elusive Tiger
Tigers in Red Weather by Ruth Padel
No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Animal in History
Zamba: The True Story of the Greatest Lion That Ever Lived
Tigers Forever: Saving the World's Most Endangered Big Cat

I think I will read The Cat of Bubastes. It is set in Egypt and has to do with the accidental killing of a cat, which is sacred. It also has the word "cat" in the title. It has been on my shelf since before 2011. It will also work for my own personal cat, Africa.

This is a tough one for me! I like cats, but don't seem to have any books about them, and I want to read the books I own this year if possible.
So far, the only book on my shelves I can think of is A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen, so probably I will read that one, unless I find anything else that I have forgotten.

Also, beautiful pictures, thank you for choosing them, Tess!

I believe I'll read The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward--I've heard good things, and the cover copy lists a cat who loves to nap and read the bible as one of the main characters! Admittedly, I think the cat on the cover was one of the things that drew me to the book in the first place :)

Adorable kitties! I'll have to see what I can find on my shelves.

Edit: I have a Doctor Who audio that will do the job: Tales from New Earth. This set of audio dramas features a race of cat people who run a hospital on New Earth.

This was tough because I don't gravitate towards cats, but I did find Making the Rounds with Oscar by David Dosa about a cat who lived at a nursing home who seemed to know when people were going to die. I think the reason I have it on my TBR pile is because it happened here in RI where I live. I can remember it being on the news.

I’ll be reading Archy & Mehitabel by Don Marquis, with pictures by George Herriman. It is humorous free verse. Archy is a cockroach and Mehitabel is an alley cat. It has been on my shelves a long time.

Lovely kitty pictures! The black panther is gorgeous.

Thinking about this one:


Tigre by Jim Kjelgaard

>4 whitewavedarling: I just read The Last House on Needless Street and really enjoyed it, but I'm sad that now I don't know if I have anything I can read next month for this topic. Maybe something will turn up serendipitously.

>10 sturlington:, good to hear! I almost picked it up for the RandomCat ('house') challenge this month, so I am glad I went in a different direction now! I will say that I'm currently reading Mike Chen's We Could Be Heroes and LOVING it, and one of the main characters has a cat who affects him enough that I think that book would fit the challenge, too, even if not quite so perfectly.

I don't seem to have any books featuring a cat right now so I am going for the "cat in title option" with Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

Love it! I'm sure I have a ton of books on my tbr for this!

LOTS of options. Here are some:
- A Cat Named Darwin / Willian Jordan
- A Street Cat Named Bob / Janet Bowen
- Maverick Cats / Ellen Perry Berkeley
- Grey Matters / Clea Simon
- The Persian Always Meows Twice / Eileen Watkins

Thanks, I love this theme! I have a lot to choose from. My kitties approve of the topic and the pictures too.

I plan to read Claws for Alarm by Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown; it's a Mrs. Murphy Mystery (Mrs. Murphy is a cat). Also it will count on my BingoDOG card as a gift since it was a Christmas gift last year.

I may read No One Noticed the Cat by Anne McCaffrey.

The only one I have on the shelf that I haven't read is The Cat Who Said Cheese by Lilian Jackson Braun so I'll go with that.

I'll probably read Catfantastic a anthology about cats edited by Andre Norton

Love this one! I'm pretty sure one of my cozy mysteries for a cozy readathon I am doing in February has a cat - they often do!

>16 hailelib: No One Noticed the Cat is so good. I have read it twice so far. Hope you enjoy it.

I have over 100 books that fit this category. I know I will read The Cat Who Dropped A Bombshell as I am finishing the series. I will also pick another book to read.

I read several cozy mystery series featuring cats so I'll likely tackle one or more of those!

I seem to have lots of dogs lurking on my shelves but a dearth of cats.

I'm struggling for obvious cats, I must admit.

>22 Robertgreaves: >23 Helenliz: Ditto.

Another good cat mystery is The Cat Saw Murder, by Dolores Hitchens, recently republished by American Mystery Classics.

Yay, I found one! The Black Cat Murder.

I just remembered I bought myself The Cat Who Saved Books for Christmas!

Wouldn't you know it? I was complaining about not having any books featuring cats, and then the very next book I read has a cat in it who plays a very prominent role! But it's still January, so I won't count it. (It is The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher.)

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which is also on my wishlist, is tagged "cats," so if my library hold comes in on time, I'll read that and see if it fits this theme.

One of my SantaThing gifts was Mimi Lee Gets A Clue by Jennifer Chow fits this category. I will read it this month.

I've been reading short stories from Seanan McGuire's October Daye urban-fantasy series. She has written 17 short stories about one of the main characters, Tybalt, who can change from human to cat form. I've read a few of them so far and hope to read more in February.

>30 mathgirl40: Oh, thanks for that! I was thinking I would need to sit this one out, but I love the October Daye series - I can just read the next one up for me, which I know features Tybalt.

>30 mathgirl40: That sounds interesting! I don't usually read in that genre, but might need to find this one.

I decided to read Cat's Cradle which is part of the Cat Royal series for kids/YA. I read most of the others in this series, and this has been languishing on my shelf for years.

>30 mathgirl40: I really like the October Daye series, but was not aware of all of those short stories. Are they part of a collection?

I've read The Cat Who Said Cheese by Lilian Jackson Braun, the 18th out of 29 in The Cat Who series. I've only read a few of the 29 but of those I've read this is my favorite. A quick, fun read!

ah ha! Found one. Winter of the Lions. Have no idea if it features an actual lion or if the use of lion is metaphorical, but I'm in. >:-)

I completed The Cat of Bubastes. It was billed as a children's classic, but I don't know of any children, or probably any teens who could read this book and/or enjoy it. The reader does get a lot of Egyptian culture and even get to "meet" Moses and the Israelites. The plot of the story is that the Priest's son accidently kills a cat, which is sacred, and the punishment is death. He and he friends run away. I can't really recommend this, it was neither good nor bad. I read it to get it off my shelf. I acquired this book from my grandmother's attic when she passed in 2009.

I have changed my mind about my book choice as thinking about this challenge, I decided that I wanted to read something with actual cats so I picked up a copy of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot and will read it instead of Cat's Cradle.

I'm reading Nick Harkaway's Tigerman for this category. I also have LT's Theory of Pets a short audiobook by Stephen King that has cats on the cover.

I read The Lion in the Living Room, which is a short, interesting nonfiction book about domestic cats and our relationship with them.

>16 hailelib: >20 lowelibrary: I loved that book too.

There's several Japanese novels featuring cats.
I'm late to this but have a 'cats in fiction' category this year so I'll try The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles by Kij Johnson and/or The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa.
On cats by Doris Lessing is another contender.

I decided to change books for this category. I will read Mimi Lee Gets A Clue if I have time at the end of the month. I decided to celebrate Library Lover's Month by reading Dewey's Nine Lives by Vicki Myron.

I have completed my read of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. A charming, humorous classic!

>41 lowelibrary: me too! I read Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander for the SFFKit (SciFi & Fantasy) but then realized it fit here.

I'll still try to read my first choice, Tigre by Jim Kjelgaard by the end of the month.

I've just noticed the book I'm currently reading, Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, has a cat on the cover. I don't know what role, if any, the cat plays in the story. I'm a quarter of the way through and it hasn't put in an appearance so far.

I read A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen and LOVED it!!! This is one of the things that is so great about the Category Challenge. I am pretty sure that I wouldn't have read this book for the next decade or so because it just didn't speak to me. But now I spent a wonderful weekend with it and it warmed my heart.
Thank you, Tess, for choosing such a great prompt!

>45 MissBrangwen: I have this on hold at the library, so I'm waiting...

>31 Crazymamie: >32 LadyoftheLodge: >33 staci426: Sorry for my delay in replying! Glad to see other October Daye fans out there or those interested in trying out the series. Tybalt ("King of Cats") is not the main character in the series but is one of the major recurring characters so he appears in a lot of the books. He has lived for centuries and the short stories are prequels to the main series.

I was a voting member for the Hugo awards and received all the Tybalt stories as part of the voter packet. I think these are ones that Seanan McGuire had written as rewards for her Patreon supporters. However, there are other places where you can get some of the stories.

The first Tybalt story is available for free here at Lightspeed Magazine:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/rat-catcher/

A couple more Tybalt stories are available on the author's Web site:
https://seananmcguire.com/tobyshorts.php

I just thought of another recommendation. I'd read The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa last year and it was a lovely and charming story.

Having gone through the books on my shelves to find 1) a book with a cat on the cover that 2) I hadn’t read already, I found the thread that binds the bones by nina kiriki hoffman

I finished The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory. One of the characters is a hybrid between a human and an Ocelot.

This was a fun locked door mystery story that featured a boy band comprised of animal/human hybrids. I really liked the two police officers investigating the case and enjoyed trying to figure out who did it along with them. The story involved a little suspension of disbelief as to how the hybrids came to be (but the story's inspiration - The Island of Dr. Moreau had a similar issue) but I did not mind. I appreciated the boy band humor and the references to some pop culture and mystery novels. The ending was satisfying and the format of the book was clever. I look forward to reading more by this author.

>49 Cora-R: Sounds good!

COMPLETED Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe, both by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and having a cat on the cover, but no cats appear in the books

>51 Robertgreaves: False advertising. Did you like them?

>53 Robertgreaves: Each of them was a charming and delightful set of interlinked stories about a cafe in Tokyo where you can travel in time but only for as long as it takes to drink a cup of coffee before it gets cold

>53 Robertgreaves: Thanks for that. Adding them to my List - I had been wondering about them.

>53 Robertgreaves: Sounds delightful. Putting at least the first one on my WL!

I recently finished Chris Wooding's The Black Lung Captain, which features Slag, an ancient and ornery cat who lives on the airship and terrorizes its human inhabitants. One of the subplots revolves around a cowardly crew member who is terrified of Slag, until he eventually finds some courage and stands up to the cat, saving his fellow crew members' lives in the process.

I almost skipped this month because the only Cat book in my TBR pile is a Winter Solstice book I'm saving for December. But then I saw Varjak Paw on the list in the first post. I've always loved the title pun and thought of reading the book some day. There were a few more Breakfast at Tiffany's name drops- the first cat Varjak meets is named Holly, and many of his siblings are named after friends, suitors, and party goers at Holly Golightly's big party.This is a children's book, with illustrations by Dave McKean. It's sort of The Way of the Warrior with cats.

I finished The Cat Saw Murder by Dolores Hitchens, classic mystery from 1939.

I didn't choose it for this theme, but Empire Falls, which I just finished, does feature a very memorable and diabolical cat named Timmy.

I read Catfishing on Catnet which includes both an AI who's fond of cat pictures and an actual cat adopted by the human protagonist, who gives birth to kittens under her bed.

March Thread is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/339545

>61 beebeereads: thanks!

>54 Crazymamie: I just put it on hold at the library. Thanks!

I finished The Cat who walked a thousand miles by Kij Johnson, at only 50 odd pages this novella was a delightful read.
The story is can be read online at https://www.tor.com/2009/07/14/the-cat-who-walked-a-thousand-miles/

I was in my library yesterday and saw this display.

>65 sturlington: Put a cat on the cover and I will buy it.

>65 sturlington: nice one~!

>65 sturlington: I like your library's display!

>66 lowelibrary: Ditto that. My cats force me to buy all kinds of cat things, including jewelry, shirts, tote bags, you name it.

I listened to LT's Theory of Pets by Stephen King. A live performance of King reading a short story about marriage and pets. The downside was the audience laughter at the end of almost every line.

I've read Claws for Alarm, a Mrs. Murphy Mystery by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown, and was disappointed that in this story the cats and dogs do not play as much of a role as in many in this series. However, they are very prominent near the end of the book, and enough to qualify for this challenge.

I have finished the graphic novel version of Coraline which features a black cat that looks very much like my sister's.

I finished The Evil Wizard Smallbone - Delia Sherman, which had two cats with significant roles.

The was a fun middle grade novel about a boy who runs away from an abusive home who ends up as the apprentice of an evil wizard in a magical book shop.

>73 Cora-R: Sounds like a winner to me. I like middle grade fiction, and when I was a full time middle school teacher, my students would often recommend books for me.

I finished another book with a significant cat: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis.

Willis' Oxford Time Travel series are always fun adventures and this is no exception. This one takes us to Victorian England and has a lot of mysteries for the historians to solve. I liked the characters and the sense of time and place. The plot kept me guessing without being too technical with its time travel explanations. There were plenty of fun mentions of literary classics - but some of the discussions spoiled classic mysteries that I had hoped to read soon. Overall a fun read that was light enough to entertain, but deep enough to hold my interest.

A Street Cat Named Bob / James Bowen
4 stars

James had just gotten himself into housing and off the streets. He was a recovering heroin addict when he found an orange cat he called Bob. James was still struggling to feed himself, let alone feed a cat, and take on vet bills as Bob was injured when he first came to James. James was a busker and continued to busk with Bob at his side. Bob helped out in that he attracted a lot of attention, so James made a lot more money than he otherwise would have. When James was kicked out of his favourite busking spots (he was not where musicians were supposed to play), he (and Bob) switched to selling the “Big Issue”, a weekly magazine sold by people down on their luck and trying to get their lives on track.

I really liked this. Bob and James saved each other. It was eye-opening to read about James’ (and likely similar stories to many others living on the streets) homelessness and life on the streets, and how hard it was for him to kick his addiction. It is a quick book to read. The book itself only goes for a couple of years after James and Bob found each other, but looking them up online after finishing, I am saddened to hear that Bob died after being hit by a car in 2020.

Finished The Last House on Needless Street, and absolutely loved it. A 4.5* read for me.

This is one of those books that shifts and changes its way through a reader's experience, becoming something else and something more each time a reader lets their guard down. In so many ways, it felt like a bleeding together of the styles and stories of Neil Gaiman and Tana French, and I mean that in the best way possible. Ward's writing is immersive and powerful, and I've no doubt that a second read would bring even more detail and appreciation to the surface. The book consistently surprised me, and it says much that even when I didn't like what those surprises/twists were, I believed in them and appreciated them for the story they told.

It's difficult to talk about this book without offering spoilers, so I'll only finish by saying that it's made me a long-term fan of Catriona Ward, and while I'm not sure whether I'd label this horror or suspense or something else entirely, I'm thankful to have found it and I'd absolutely recommend it. I've already preordered the author's next book.

Managed to fit in Mimi Lee Gets A Clue for the challenge