Product Description

Cat owners know the truth: cats, in fact, own them and their feline needs must be met—sooner rather than later. In this delightfully irreverent book, highlighted by Jackie Geyer's evocative illustrations, the author of the highly successful, How to Live with a Neurotic Dog, offers coping mechanisms for those who struggle with the endless task of keeping their cats pampered and therefore happy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #586874 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-12
• Released on: 1999-10-12
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

From the Inside Flap
Cat owners know the truth: cats, in fact, own them and their feline needs must be met—sooner rather than later. In this delightfully irreverent book, highlighted by Jackie Geyer's evocative illustrations, the author of the highly successful, How to Live with a Neurotic Dog, offers coping mechanisms for those who struggle with the endless task of keeping their cats pampered and therefore happy.

Excerpted from How to Live With a Neurotic Cat by Stephen Baker and Jackie Geyer. Copyright © 1989. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Introduction

And then God created a furry lump which, for the lack of a better name, He called the Cat. He looked at His creation and shook His head. It wasn't exactly what He had in mind.

He held the thing up in the air and it hung limply from His fingers. He dropped it to the ground, and it spread out in all directions as flat as a pancake. And when he crossed the forelegs across its chest and folded the hind legs into a lotus position, that is exactly where the limbs stayed.

His curiosity piqued, He turned the body over, stretching it to almost twice its length. He rolled it into a small ball, twisting, bending, kneading it. The thing did not even open its eyes.

He rubbed His beard incredulously, He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He knew of course that what He had just created was less than a miracle.

But there was no time to make changes, not with the seven-day deadline around the corner.

"Oh well," He shrugged. "You can't win them all."

With not a moment to spare upon its arrival on Earth, the cat curled up and went back to sleep.

Customer Reviews

Light, Silly and Funny
Its light hearted, simple, and funny, thats it. Its pretty true, and the illustrations in it are a riot.
Its a humor book, its not meant to be taken literally.

"Surviving Amongst Felines"
"How to Live With a Neurotic Cat," by Stephen Baker, Gramercy Books, NY, 1999. ISBN 0-517-20734-6. HC unnumbered pages (not counted) with 9 chapters has an Introduction & many Illustrations. 9 1/2" x 6 1/4".

This prolific author gives an informed and knowledgeable accounting of feline behavior, undoubtedly from extensive experience as he effectively describes the collective and individual behavior demonstrated by our 4.5 cats (one comes early AM just to eat) & counts as 1/2). The illustrations by Jackie Geyser are superb and are as good as photographs.

I've often considered all my cats demonstrated paranormal activity and behavior akin to pre-psychotic afflictions, all exhibiting variable degrees of autism and Mama Keikeiaeu demonstrating typical Asperger's syndrome, but with big-time class. Mighty Sebastian at 25# smashes on the steel doors when he wishes to come inside.

I enjoyed Baker's calculating the degree of cats' boredom by their yawning gap: for years I naively ratiocinated it was true fatigue! Our cats, however, cherish prolonged brushings and do not object being bathed (wife does this); so obviously they have an inborn organic brain defect...I'll order each a CAT scan to make the diagnosis.

The book has a serious flaw, to my mind -- the pages are not numbered and I downgraded it for that reason. Else, I love the book.

Silly and useless
This book is ONLY a comic relief, there is nothing here that you can learn. The words "How to" in the title are misleading. I was mislead by great reviews here, so want to warn other potential buyers. I bought this book as a gift to my girlfriend because we got a cat and she has never had cats before, only dogs. I was hoping that she will learn something from it. She read the whole thing in about 20 minutes, smiled a couple of times and that's it. Even as a humorous book, it is very silly, repetitive and lacks in quality.