Saturday, March 4, 2017

The lion in the living room

The lion in the living room: how house cats tamed us and took over the world / Abigail Tucker, 241 pgs.

This book gives an overview of the science, history and culture of cats. Tucker, a self confessed cat lover, has interviewed and extensively researched the topic.  It is hard to pick out one or two favorite things that I learned while reading this book.  One theme that pops up over and over is scientists basically disproving the value of cats as companions and pets, all the while choosing to share their lives with their own pet cats.  History seems to show that instead of humans "domesticating" cats, cats pretty much s just showed up and trained the humans.  This jibes with my own personal experience  with cats who allow me to share their space, begrudgingly giving up a few petting opportunities while somehow pretty much running the house.  Cat lovers, and there are a LOT of us, will be amused by many of the chapters here.

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