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Ebook257 pages4 hours
Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man
By Tom Cox
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this ebook
For years, Tom Cox might have seemed like a regular, hard-living sort of bloke -- a lover of late nights, rock music and beer -- but he had a dark furry secret. Tom was a cat lover. Always had been, in fact. For a while, he kept his passion in check, but there was only so long he could postpone his true dream, especially after he met Dee, his moggy-loving soulmate. In 2001, Tom left London and his job as a rock critic behind, and he and Dee, replete with Dee's cat Janet and three new kittens, moved to a remote part of Norfolk, a county where they knew not one living human soul. They thought it would be easy. They thought their cat madness had reached its limit. They were very wrong on both counts. In UNDER THE PAW, Tom records the chaos of owning seven of the most charismatic, idiotic and duplicitous cats in the country. How exactly does a person go from living a fancy-free young metropolitan life to suddenly thinking it is normal to be on 24-hour call for multiple sets of whiskers? What are the essential rules of disposing of a dead pheasant? How do you learn to love your wife's ex's favourite pet? Tom addresses all these issues and much more, encountering death, depression, flying fur and the first human sentence spoken by a feline along the way. Running through all the maelstrom is the heartbreaking story of his long and chequered relationship with The Bear, his oldest cat: a "painfully sensitive" survivor moggy who may or may not be an evil genius.
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Author
Tom Cox
TOM COX has a monthly column in the Guardian's Life and Style section, called The 21st Century Yokel. He also has regular slots in Golf International magazine, Your Cat magazine, and reviews books for several newspapers. He lives in Norfolk, England.
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Reviews for Under the Paw
Rating: 3.6860466441860464 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
43 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I could identify with a lot of what's in this book. It's nice to know there are other people out there that relate to their cats (and cats in general) the same way I do. It's also always nice to see a man declaring himself to be a true cat person. A great book that sums up how special life is with a cat, or more than one cat.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What can I say about this one...? Well, if the title appeals to you, then the book probably will too, because it pretty much does what it says on the tin. In a nutshell, Cox discusses the perils of being one of the minority breed of Cat Men, and covers the span of his time as a cat lover, right from his earliest, little-mentioned childhood friends Puss and Felix. Most of the book, however, is dedicated to the cats gracing the prime of his life - beginning when he first meets Dee, his future wife and an unashamedly enthusiastic cat woman. And so The Bear comes into his life: a temperamental black cat who may or may not be concocting evil plots, and who has a liking for Indian food and defecating in Dee's dressing gown pocket. Add to that Janet, a huge black hairball with the IQ of a teaspoon and a startling talent for creative vomiting, and you have the start of something huge.From there it's a rocky roller-coaster of cattishness. Into their newly-married life tumble three kittens: Brewer the adventurer, Ralph (previously Prudence - bit of a shock when that one came out) and Shipley (the Obnoxious Yappy Black Cat). Throw in a couple of house moves, a turtle, and a brief dalliance with a 'cat' the size of a puma, then add two more cats to the mix: Pablo (Overexcitable Retarded Ginger Cat, previously a feral tearaway) and Bootsy (Grey Dwarf Cat, finally a clever girl to keep Dee company!).Throw in a dash of tragedy and a whole lot of humour, and there you have it. A book that made me giggle out loud and cry a little bit as well. I have to admit, it did get a bit MUCH at times, and I was ready for the end when it came, but if I started to drift off there was always another cracking 'my cat does that!' moment to chuckle over and jerk me back into the book. In between the (long) chapters there are little humorous interludes which also helped, from a dictionary of cattish terms (do you know what a mousetache is? No?) to a definitive guide to successfully feeding six demanding characters at the same time.Would I read it again? Maybe, maybe not. Cox doesn't quite have that far-reaching humour that Deric Longden, for example, possesses in such wonderful quantities and which makes him so re-readable. I love cats, but I did feel that sometimes the book could have benefited from slightly less felines, slightly more rest of life, only with the spot-on humour staying intact instead of dying away on non-cat-related pages. Would I recommend it? Definitely...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a very funny book that will have you laugh out loud from time to time.It helps to be a cat lover, of course.Tom Cox really is a very funny writer and I am glad I came across this book.