Dog and Cat Books for Holiday Gifts

This has been a great year for new books about dogs. And, I have been reading and listening to some old favorite books and audiobooks starring cats.

Dog Books This Year

Off the Leash: A Year at the Dog Park by Boston Globe TV critic Matthew Gilbert was a hit with me and with many of my dog loving friends. Matthew was not a dog person until his husband convinced him that they needed a dog in their life. And, he was not much of a people person until he became part of the community at a dog park. The book is a tale of the transition and what he describes as, “... the strange, wonderful, neurotic, and eccentric dog people who gather daily at Amory Park, overlooking Boston.”

Travels With Casey by Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a most enjoyable travelogue of the author’s four month trip across this country with his Labrador Retriever. 

On a more serious note, I learned much from Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves by science historian Laurel Braitman. 

     

Old Favorite Cat Tales

Boston son Cleveland Amory became known as, ”... the founding father of the modern animal protection movement.” He chronicled his transition from social critic to a man who spent the rest of his life devoted to animals in a series of books about Snowball – the cat he rescued from a Manhattan street in 1977. 

The books, beginning with The Cat Who Came for Christmas (most appropriate for this time of year), next the The Cat and the Curmudgeon, and then The Best Cat Ever.

At the library and still in bookstores, you can find another cat biographical series by Peter Gethers. He tells the tale of Norton, the Scottish Fold, who traveled the world with him. That series begins with, The Cat Who Went to Paris.

And, for those who love mysteries, eccentric people, and cats, there is "The Cat Who..." series from the late Massachusetts resident Lilian Jackson Braun. These books and some of the others mentioned here are available in various formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Here are direct links to the books on Amazon. 

  

 

Details:

Words: Penny Cherubino – previously published as one of her City Paws newspaper columns.

Artwork: Courtesy of the publishers.

Related articles

What's Your Sunday Dog's Hobby?

Benny and the Salmon & Why You Shouldn't Feed Raw Salmon to Dogs

Tips for Dealing with Uncontrolled Dogs