Under the Paw by Tom Cox

Under the Paw is Tom Cox’s hilarious account of his life with cats – from his first childhood pets, through to marriage to a fellow moggy-lover, and the eventual acquiring of six distinctive felines. 

If you think there is already way too much cat silliness on the Internet – cutesy photos with corny captions, pet blogs and even Facebook for cats – you are probably right. Reading yet another book about someone and their pet cats might seem unnecessary. Yet even if you don’t like cats, Under the Paw is still highly entertaining. Cox, also a music journalist, is an accomplished writer and his self-deprecating humour will have you chuckling as he describes how his life has become completely taken over by cats.

There are wonderful ‘factual’ inserts too – such as his ‘Random Selections from the Cat Dictionary’, a useful guide for those of us who have to deal with things like ‘Gribbly bits’ (the bits of jellied cat meat that escape from the bowl and weld themselves to hardwood floors and kick boards) or ‘Purple mist’ (the special kind of unforgiving cat anger reserved for an owner who has experimented by attaching a lead to its collar).

There are poignant moments too such as the visit to the SPCA to choose a cat, and the loss of another on the road. Then there are Cox’s on-going attempts to understand the ‘troubled, sensitive, artistic black cat’ known as The Bear. Under the Paw is the first of three books Cox has written about his pets, and if you enjoy these as much as I did, you might even want to check out his Facebook page!

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Under the paw