Beware the Cat


Book Description

Beware the Cat (1533) is the earliest original piece of long prose fiction in English. It has the distinction of being the first English "novel," far surpassing in narrative sophistication such immediate predecessors as Elyot's Image of Governance or Borde's Scoggin's Jests. This edition, besides providing a modernized text of the novel, also identifies the pseudonymous author of Beware the Cat as William Baldwin, better known as editor and principal author of the enormously popular Mirror for Magistrates (1559). The development of early English prose fiction is thoroughly documented in two informative and wide-ranging appendices. William Baldwin's place in this tradition, as well as his innovative narrative art, is discussed in the introduction, which also provides biographical information on the author, historical background to his novel, and insight into the political and religious turmoil of the middle years of the sixteenth century.




Beware of the Cat!


Book Description

Mrs Papadopoulos deceives her new neighbours with a sign on her gate. Includes notes for parents and teachers. Suggested level: junior.




Cat Poems


Book Description

A gorgeous gift edition, dedicated to the mystery, grace, and charm of the cat Across the ages, cats have provided their adopted humans with companionship, affection, mystery, and innumerable metaphors; cats cast a mirror on their beholders; cats endlessly captivate and hypnotize, frustrate and delight. And to poets, in particular, these enigmatic creatures are the most delightful and beguiling of muses (Charles Baudelaire: “the sole source of amusement in one’s lodgings”) as they go about purring, prowling, hunting, playing, meowing, and napping, often oblivious to their so-called masters (Jorge Luis Borges: “you live in other time, lord of your realm—a world as closed and separate as a dream”). Cat Poems offers a litter of odes to our beloved felines by Charles Baudelaire, Stevie Smith, Christopher Smart, Denise Levertov, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rainer Maria Rilke, Muriel Spark, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and many others.




Cat Sense


Book Description

Cats have been popular household pets for thousands of years, and their numbers only continue to rise. Today there are three cats for every dog on the planet, and yet cats remain more mysterious, even to their most adoring owners. Unlike dogs, cats evolved as solitary hunters, and, while many have learned to live alongside humans and even feel affection for us, they still don’t quite “get us” the way dogs do, and perhaps they never will. But cats have rich emotional lives that we need to respect and understand if they are to thrive in our company. In Cat Sense, renowned anthrozoologist John Bradshaw takes us further into the mind of the domestic cat than ever before, using cutting-edge scientific research to dispel the myths and explain the true nature of our feline friends. Tracing the cat’s evolution from lone predator to domesticated companion, Bradshaw shows that although cats and humans have been living together for at least eight thousand years, cats remain independent, predatory, and wary of contact with their own kind, qualities that often clash with our modern lifestyles. Cats still have three out of four paws firmly planted in the wild, and within only a few generations can easily revert back to the independent way of life that was the exclusive preserve of their predecessors some 10,000 years ago. Cats are astonishingly flexible, and given the right environment they can adapt to a life of domesticity with their owners—but to continue do so, they will increasingly need our help. If we’re to live in harmony with our cats, Bradshaw explains, we first need to understand their inherited quirks: understanding their body language, keeping their environments—however small—sufficiently interesting, and becoming more proactive in managing both their natural hunting instincts and their relationships with other cats. A must-read for any cat lover, Cat Sense offers humane, penetrating insights about the domestic cat that challenge our most basic assumptions and promise to dramatically improve our pets’ lives—and ours.




The Big New Yorker Book of Cats


Book Description

Look what The New Yorker dragged in! It’s the purr-fect gathering of talent celebrating our feline companions. This bountiful collection, beautifully illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. Among the contributors are Margaret Atwood, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Roald Dahl, Wolcott Gibbs, Robert Graves, Emily Hahn, Ted Hughes, Jamaica Kincaid, Steven Millhauser, Haruki Murakami, Amy Ozols, Robert Pinsky, Jean Rhys, James Thurber, John Updike, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and E. B. White. Including a Foreword by Anthony Lane, this gorgeous keepsake will be a treasured gift for all cat lovers. Praise for The Big New Yorker Book of Cats “The Book of Cats comes a year after The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs—a publishing slight that, though it stings, I’ll forgive, as the latest anthology was worth the wait. . . . Two standout articles feature real-life obsessives of ages past who reveal today’s Caturnet devotees—with their GIFs and Tumblrs and hastily aggregated listicles—for what they truly are: amateurs. . . . Eat your heart out, Cute Overload.”—The New York Times Book Review “A beautiful hardcover.”—Jenny McCarthy, People “This irresistible anthology of articles, poems, essays, fiction, cartoons, and covers pulled from the New Yorker is a veritable treasure trove for cat lovers. Just dive right in; with stories from the likes of John Updike, Maeve Brennan, Roald Dalhl, and Haruki Murakami interwoven with hilariously wry cartoons, one can’t help but be enthralled. A must-have.”—Modern Cat “A shiny, well-fed tome . . . The anthology embodies the cat’s defining characteristic: its cluster of opposites, rolled together into a giant hairball of cultural attitudes—something, perhaps, at once uncomfortably and assuringly reflective of our own chronically conflicted selves.”—Brain Pickings “This gorgeous book has earned a permanent spot on my coffee table. It is an absolute joy to read and browse through, and I know it will bring me hours and hours of pleasure for years to come. And it makes a purr-fect gift for the special cat lovers in your life.”—The Conscious Cat “[A] sumptuous volume.”—The Dallas Morning News




Does This Collar Make My Butt Look Big?


Book Description

This diet-guide parody shows "extra furry" cats how to get svelte with kitty-specific versions of popular weight-loss and fitness regimes like the Zone, South Beach, Mayo Clinic, and French Women Don't Get Fat (But Their Cats Do). Americans own more than 86 million cats, and the wild popularity of cat videos--from YouTube to the Internet Cat Video Film Festival--proves that cat-lovers can't get enough kitty humor. This book pokes fun at tubby tabbies--the world's cutest (and surliest) fat creatures--with laugh-out-loud details that will tickle the funnybone of anyone "owned" by a cat. Lampooning trendy weight-loss regimes and health gurus, this book will also make people feel better about their own battle of the bulge in comparison to cats' insatiable appetites and lazy lifestyles. By eating right for their blood type, sourcing raw and living foods, joining Weight Stalkers, avoiding toxic treats, and exercising while lying down, felines of every shape (round) and size (round) will soon be motivated to ditch the fifth serving of Beef Morsels in Gravy for fresh, local options like that vole in the backyard.







Literature and politics in the English Reformation


Book Description

This book is a study of the English Reformation as a political and literary event. Focusing on an eclectic group of texts, unified by their explication of the key elements of the cultural history of the period 1510-1580 the book unravels the political, poetic and religious themes of the era. Through readings of work by Edmund Spenser, William Tyndale, Sir Thomas More and John Skelton, as well as less celebrated Tudor writers, Betteridge surveys pre-Henrician literature as well as Henrician Reformation texts, and delineates the literature of the reigns of Edward VI, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. Ultimately, the book argues that this literature, and the era, should not be understood simply on the basis of conflicts between Protestantism and Catholicism but rather that Tudor culture must be seen as fractured between emerging confessional identities and marked by a conflict between those who embraced confessionalism and those who rejected it. This important study will be fascinating reading for students and researchers in early modern English literature and history.




Oral Traditions and Gender in Early Modern Literary Texts


Book Description

This volume explores the cultural meanings, especially the gendered meanings, of material associated with oral traditions. It is divided into three sections: 'Our mothers' maids', 'Spinsters, knitters and the uses of oral traditions' and 'Oral traditions and masculinity'.