From the Theatre Royal booksale.

A book that claims to have been co-authored by a cat (Sneaky Pie - he even gets his own author biography!) is something I just have to read. Glancing at the first couple of pages it seems to be pretty cutesy, so may not be my cup of tea, but seeing as I've just (finally) finished a very long non-fiction tome about the British Intelligence Service in WWII, I think I need something light and fluffy for my next read.

Has a stamp on it from the Medina County District Library, Hinckley Branch. A Google search tells me that's in Ohio, USA. I wonder how it got to a booksale in Christchurch?

^ ^
00
=+=
v

Well, it was predictably cutesey (the animal characters "talk" to each other, can understand everything the humans say, and worst sin of all, call their owner "Mom" (if my cats have a name for me, it's something along the lines of "food provider and warm lap", probably)). I'd pretty much solved the mystery by about half way through, despite getting horribly confused by the multitude of characters, seemingly all with similar names (I suspect this book is one of a series about the same characters, so probably if I'd started with the first book in the series I wouldn't have got so confused). One thing that really irritated me was the way the author over-explains things. I'm not sure if she is being condescending, or just showing off how much research she's done, but the book was full of comments like: "Cynthia knew that 'rough trade' was a term originated by homosexuals that had passed into heterosexual parlance. It meant someone out of the class system, someone with the whiff of an outlaw, like a Hell's Angel. The term had devolved to mean anyone with whom one slept who was of a lower class than oneself." You can almost hear her copying the definition out of the dictionary. And her descriptions of a computer virus, vital to the plot, would make anyone with even the slightest techie inclinations wince.

But despite all my gripes, it is a pleasant wee book, readable enough, and fitted my requirement of "something light and fluffy" perfectly. Just don't expect anything more than that.

^ ^
00
=+=
v

Released on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 at The Boardroom Cafe, Hereford Street in Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand.

Left in the Boardroom after our meetup, 8 July 2003.

caught the book from visiting japanese woman. Passing on to West Coaster

CAUGHT IN CHRISTCHURCH CANTERBURY NEW ZEALAND