Jeoffry’s Favorite Cat Books
We must begin this section, of course, with book that inspired our name, My Cat Jeoffry, by Christopher Smart and illustrated by cat artist Martin Leman. This is a small, glossy book, perfect for your coffee table, is comprised only of the poem about Smart’s cat Jeoffry, taken from his larger work, Jubilate Agno, which he wrote between 1759 and 1763. Leman’s illustrations are beautiful and really add to the sweet, beautiful poem about how awesome, and absolutely divine, cats are!
Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat, by Gwen Cooper. This super popular memoir about Cooper’s adopting a rescue cat, blinded as a kitten, and watching him cope with – and totally conquer – life is truly deserving of all the accolades it has received. Homer is a real hero. We’re excited to check out more of Cooper’s cat books!
Absolutely anything by Queen Rita. Seriously, if you like mysteries at all, then Rita Mae Brown is the master. Her Sneaky Pie Brown / Mrs. Murphy series features both cats and a dog as sleuths. The animals all have strong personalities and are very instrumental in helping their human solve the crime. In fact, they often outsmart her 🙂
Ditto for Lilian Jackson Braun and her fabulous Cat Who series. Her cats are the Siamese pair, Koko and Yum Yum, and their human is reporter Jim Qwilleran. Koko and Yum Yum don’t speak, unlike Brown’s trio of animal sleuths, but they are wonderfully clever felines and they help solve crimes by giving clues, such as batting books out of a bookcase and the like. If you haven’t experienced Braun and you are a cat lover, what are you waiting for?
Black Cats Tell All, by Layla Morgan Wilde. A lovely coffee table book with fun, colorful pictures and vignettes about real cats that debunks the ridiculously outdated myth that black cats are somehow sinister! Our review is here.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron. Wonderful memoir about a library cat in the small town of Spencer, Iowa, who touched the townspeople, and the world. Read our review here.