Product Details
The Power of Purrs: Reflections on a Life with Cats

The Power of Purrs: Reflections on a Life with Cats
By Gary Shiebler

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Product Description

Few things in life can transform, empower, and enlighten our lives the way a cat can. It is a power that can be measured not only by memories and pawprints left on our hearts and souls (and carpets!), but also by the occasional welcome lap naps or an affectionate rubbing up against your ankles when you walk through the door. The Power of Purrs poignantly illuminates that special magic and takes the reader on a heartfelt and often humorous journey about loyalty, love, and how to let go.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #298497 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-05-13
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 160 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A kind and wonderful storyteller, Gary Shiebler’s love and respect for our whiskered angels is conveyed beautifully in the pages of the The Power of Purrs. The book is pure sunshine.”--Walter Ralph Emery, country music disk jockey and television host
 
“As an essayist, as a songwriter, as a man, Gary Shiebler carries music in his voice. In an age of pyrotechnics, this book purrs. His work reminds us how much we depend on species other than our own, to fill the corners and hold down the couches and run ahead of us, sometimes to show the way.”--Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
 
"I used to take in stray cats in my barn and name them after automobiles: Cadillac, Chevy, Rolls Royce, and Fiat. I hid the keys and none of my cats ever left home. I love this cat book."--Tom T. Hall, American country balladeer, songwriter, and country singer
 
"I love these books! Wonderful and inspiring stories about our most beloved companions."--Kassie DePaiva, actress
 

From the Back Cover

Few things in life can transform, empower, and enlighten our lives the way a cat can. It is a power that can be measured not only by memories and pawprints left on our hearts and souls (and carpets!), but also by the occasional welcome lap naps or an affectionate rubbing up against your ankles when you walk through the door. The Power of Purrs poignantly illuminates that special magic and takes the reader on a heartfelt and often humorous journey about loyalty, love, and how to let go.

About the Author

Gary Shiebler is an award-winning singer and songwriter who has produced and written for such country music legends as Tanya Tucker, Bobby Bare, George Jones, Patty Loveless, Merle Haggard and Porter Wagoner to name a few. His love for animals—especially dogs, cats, and horses—and his work as a humane educator at the nationally recognized Helen Woodward Animal Center in southern California inspired him to write The Power of Purrs and The Power of Paws. He lives with his wife, Linda and daughter Hayden in Anza, California, with a host of critters that includes two horses, two dogs, two cats, and one cranky cockatiel.

Customer Reviews

Purrrfect Read for Cat Lovers5
I couldn't put Gary Shiebler's THE POWER OF PURRS down. The honesty in his writing resonates. I laughed, I cried (and I'm not just saying that for dramatic effect!), and I remembered the cats that have come in and out of my own life. Even if you hate cats, you'll love the insightful stories Shiebler shares. Maybe you'll even change your mind . . .

TOUCHING, FUNNY, AND CAUSE FOR REFLECTION4


One can assume that Ogden Nash didn't have much love for cats when he wrote "The trouble with a kitten is THAT eventually it becomes a CAT." Those who share this view will be won over by Gary Shiebler's engaging memoir in which he relates his love for and life with animals, primarily the feline variety.

The author grew up in a home where at no time would there be fewer than two cats and two dogs, all of them unforgettable and remarkable in various ways. When a school boy one of his companions was Sweet Kitty. As he writes, "It's easy to appreciate the value of a dog that greets a young boy on a front lawn after school, leaping, bounding, tail wagging, tongue dangling, and eyes beaming. It's not as easy to mark the importance of a sleeping cat curled up on a cobbler's bench next to where you drop your book bag every day. Sweet Kitty was my trusted anchor. Her simple and steady presence helped me believe, even in the most uncertain times, that everything was going to be all right."

Shiebler has a gift for recognizing the importance in our lives of cats, and he shares that gift with us. Few readers will forget Cokie who loved to attack legs, to scratch dogs and people yet joined Rusty, the family dog, to sleep with young Shiebler every night. And, there was Rainbow who at four months of age ingested Morning Glory seeds which contain the same elements as LSD. Rainbow was never the same again nor was the Shiebler family.

An award winning songwriter and singer, Shiebler also works as a humane educator at the Helen Woodward Animal Center in southern California. Thus, many of the felines we meet are residents of the Center. His stories of them and the children who come to learn about animals are both funny and touching. If you're not an animal lover now you surely will be after reading The Power of Purrs.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

Disappointing and Frustrating!1
I was so excited to read this book, since I am a complete cat lover. What I was by the middle of it was mad as hell! This guy repeatedly loses his cats to coyotes and other outside elements, and still he lets them outside. Moron!