Coffee Table Books About Cats
What’s better than cats, books, and coffee?
Nada, amirite?! This combo is the veritable recipe for happiness. Unless … you want to stir those ingredients together and taste the sumptuousness that is coffee table books about cats.
A coffee table book is usually a hard-covered, oversized, pictorial tome intended for sparking imagination and conversation (#fancy). Recently, I discovered that there is a subgenre of coffee table books in the form of beautiful anthologies about cats. Since my birthday was right around the corner, your girl went in haul mode. If you are on the lookout for a gift for a cats & books lover (treat yo’self, permission granted!), Junipurr and I are here with a discerning whiskers review of three popular coffee table books about cats: Shop Cats of New York, Distillery Cats, and Girls and Their Cats. For each book, we include a TLDR summary for the “Yes or no? I’m running through checkout” peeps and a longer reflection for the “I love reading so much I can read essays about books” peeps. See, we got you covered!
Shop Cats of New York by Tamar Arslanian & Andrew Marttila
Cut to The Chase
This book is for you if you have a deep fondness for shop cats, New York City, or better yet, both. The degree of fondness should be such that a match can ignite an entire fire of imagination. This book might not be for you if you crave stories of deep connection or stories told with a distinct writer’s voice. At least four of the profiled cats (including the beautiful cover meowdel) have no narrative at all; and, the majority of profiles feel like drive-by glimpses told in a matter-of-fact, journalistic voice. Perhaps this book is a metaphor for the New York experience – everyone is full of story and potential, but life moves at such lightning pace that we often only catch glimpses of each other?
All The Deets
After hearing the thoughtful Pawprint: An Animal Rescue Community interview with author Tamar Arslanian and reading the Good Reads reviews, I confidently pulled the trigger and bought this book.
I confess I fancy myself to have a special connection with New York, having lived there for a hot second during my college years. Though I did not encounter any shop cats during my New York tenure (alas!), I love and resonate with the message Arslanian shared during her Pawprint interview: Cats belong everywhere, and a loving shop can be a wonderful alternative home for some cats.
I wish the book had explored these themes more explicitly or delved into each cat’s story more deeply. Instead, it offers impressionistic quick sketches, mostly following the same narrative framework of how the cats were found and maybe a quirk or daily ritual. Nonetheless, by sheer subject matter – we are talking about cats, the very incarnation of intrigue! – some of the stories are smile-inducing and heart-trending. Take the “not large but definitely in charge” little Clive of Canine Styles Boutique (p42) or the palpable grief of Charlie, who lost his sibling Christina recently (p57), for example. That New Yorker cool can be seen here and there too, in the “mightier than thou” swag of Zero from Enchantments (an occult store, p60), the “why yes, Yoko Ono is one of my protégés” aura of Topeka from Manhattan Cat Specialist (a vet office, p77), and the “Sean O’Pry, who? Je suis Le Meowdel!” style of Hampton from Corner Bookstore (an indie bookstore, p105). In other words, the now Instagram-famous Andrew Martilla’s photography subtly adds to the story, and your imagination is invited to fill in the rest.
To honor the spitfire honesty of New Yorkers, I will be frank: The first time I looked through Shop Cats, I was disappointed. However, a beauty of the coffee table book is its potential for savoring and repeat visits. So, upon re-aligning my expectations, I discovered: Why, this is a lovely book in its own way!
Distillery Cats by Brad Thomas Parsons & Julia Kuo
Cut to The Chase
Ok, I lied.
I may or may not be on record for saying that “cats, books, and coffee” is the recipe for happiness. By coffee, I meant alcohol, and for anyone who enjoys an occasional sip of C2H5OH (be it wine, beer, or spirits), Distillery Cats is a delightful read. The bursting-with-purrsonality illustrations, intriguing cocktail recipes, and poignant literary quotes about cats round out this coffee table book’s imagination & conversation sparking mandate. This book may not be for if you and alcohol are working out a truce or if you are looking for an in-depth historical study of cats’ role as mousers (it is, after all, still a picture-book anthology).
All The Deets
I am a flagrant judge-a-book-by-its-cover book selector (YOLO ;), and the covers of Distillery Cats immediately hooked my interest. I mean, who am I to refuse a book with a front cover blurb that begins with “May of the world’s greatest spirits have a secret ingredient, and it’s one you’d never guess: the tireless protection and loyal support of distillery cats” AND a back cover review from Kerry Diamond of Cherry Bombe stating “Cats + Booze! Brad Thomas Parsons has channeled his inner cat lady to discover the ultimate formula for happiness”?
The book begins with a deft intro to cats’ various roles as our colleagues in environments like distilleries, farms, bodegas etc., concluding with a heartfelt nod to the “adopt-don’t shop ethos” that motivates this pairing of community cats with “appropriate workplaces like distilleries and breweries.” Then, the juicy profiles of Chief Mousers/Brand Ambassadors begin.
Without spilling too many of the juicy beans, I will just note that looking through this book is a bit like wandering around Anthropologie or your favorite local artisan goods market. There are so many fun trinkets and creative shiny objects in the form of witty job titles (Taproom Ham and Head Paperweight), superpowers (customer relations and tipping over wastebaskets), hobbies (sunbeams and scratching expensive things), and origin stories to ooh and ahh over. I refuse to go on record for having any favorites, as truly every single cat featured is infinitely adorable, but a certain Corky Pants of Olde York Farm Distillery & Cooperage, who has a distillery dog as her best friend and a groupie of ducks as her admirers (“For some reason, the ducks are obsessed with Cork and follow her ‘around our backyard. Cork is extremely skeptical about this.” P39) may have trapped my heart.
On a final note, the illustrations by Julia Kuo are something to behold – I don’t know how she did it, but each cat’s portrait reveals more juicy morsels about his/her personality than ten photographs could.
Girls and Their Cats by BriAnne Wills & Elyse Moody
Cut to The Chase
This book is for you if you like stories told with heart & humor, photographs infused with light & warmth (that also give a peek into fabulous interior design), and celebrating a diverse array of cat mamas. It might not be for you if do not like the above. (WHO are you? Sigh, this is a safe space for all…).
All The Deets
With all the talk about shop cats and distillery cats, our humble house cats may begin to seem ordinary … Just Kidding! Everyone knows that “humble” and “ordinary” cannot be used in the same sentence as cats. Moreover, those of us blessed enough to have a furbaby or more at home know that they not only live rich & fabulous lives themselves but also fill ours with that good juju. Plus, domestic cats encompass the majority of sheltered cats, so naturally this category has the most number of books.
Girls and Their Cats came across my radar because of Hannah Shaw (aka KittenLady), a celebrated animal advocate and one of the featured cat parents. In the past, I’ve approached “[category of people] and their cats” books with much glee (e.g. Writers and Their Cats, Hollywood Cats, Hemingway’s Cats, etc.) but been disappointed. So when I saw first this book, I did not feel called. I mean, “girls” is such a broad category and women + cats is almost cliché (admittedly, it’s also my life), so does viewing cat love through the lens of this social construct really have any new insight to add?
Friend, I was wrong. This book is SUNSHINE itself.
Though each profile is no longer than three pages, the women share, in their own voice, deeply felt stories about how their furbabies saw them through the peaks and valleys of life – births and miscarriages, self-discovery and self-doubt. The adoption stories, daily rituals, and precious moments shared will wrap your heart in a cashmere shawl and make feel a swell of kinship. Also, the photographs would make an evocative exhibit at the Getty, and the editorial interludes (e.g. “What to expect when you’re expecting a new cat”) are full of sound cat parenting advice. I’ve re-read this book numerous times now, noticing new favorites each time, though I stand by my initial assessment that Puno (p166), founder of ILoveCreatives and mom to Muad’Dib, is a comedic genius.
One of my favorite things about the book did not hit me until after I read it. There is a subtle – by which I mean unspoken, matter-of-fact - celebration of diversity. The cat mamas, and the cats, come from all walks of life, and though each story is indisputably unique, the collective mosaic paints a vibrant celebration of cat mamas and furbabies everywhere.
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There you have it, our candid review of three top-selling coffee table books about cats: Shop Cats of New York, Distillery Cats, and Girls and Their Cats! If you’ve read these books, did you agree with our assessment? If you have insight on other books in this genre, please do share! Happy reading and gifting, friend!
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REFERENCES
Rhee, Harold, host. “104: Tamar Arslanian, Author, Shop Cats of New York, and I Have Cat blog.” Pawprint: An Animal Rescue Community Podcast, Pawprint, 26 February 2017. http://www.thisispawprint.com/104-tamar-arslanian-author-shop-cats-of-new-york-and-i-have-cat-blog/
Arslanian, Tamar with Andrew Marttila. Shop Cats of New York. New York: Harper Design, 2016.
Parsons, Brad Thomas with Julia Kuo. Distillery Cats. New York: Ten Speed Press, 2017.
Wills, BriAnne with Elyse Moody. Girls and Their Cats. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2019.
