The Guest Cat (2001) by Takashi Hiraide #ReadingtheMeow2026 #20BOS26

 

🐈 My second (and last) read for #ReadingtheMeow2026 hosted by Mallika, is a Japanese semi-autobiographical novel by an acclaimed Japanese poet Takashi Hiraide. It was based on Hiraide's own part of life, where, as freelancers, he and his wife had lived in a small rented cottage in the quiet part of Tokyo, and their attachment to a certain cat. Hiraide wrote this as a novella, with his poetical style of writing, combining a beautiful narrative with a touching story of relationship between human and animal, spiced up with a little mystery at the end.

🐈 The narrator, like Hiraide himself, is a freelance writer, who rents a small cottage which had been a kind of pavilion to a big house, where the landlady lives. The cottage is uniquely placed, tucked into a corner down a kind of zigzagging alley. I love how Hiraide describes the cottage and the alley, which he calls Lightning Alley - due to its zigzag shape, similar to lightning (I suddenly thought of Harry Potter's scar!) Anyway, a cat invites herself to their kitchen one day. This cat, which is called Chibi, does not seem to belong to anyone around the neighborhood. Sure, the boy next door is kind of the formal owner, but in reality, Chibi just let herself being fed and played with for only a certain time by the boy. At night she sleeps at the narrator's cottage, inside a box in the cupboard. The cat let itself in from a tiny gap at the window (Chibi is a small cat). At a particular time every morning, she would leave, just in time to see the neighbor boy go to school.

🐈 Despite Chibi's seemingly 'aloofness' (she never allows anyone touch her, and she never lets out even a single meow), the narrator and his wife are soon attached to her. The guest cat brings bright shine to their existence, and slowly but surely, Chibi seems to be part of their family. Just like how Chibi had first appeared at their cottage, one day she just stopped coming. This distressed the young couple not a little - just as if their child is suddenly missing. They wait and wait in vain, then one day the author heard from his neighbor (mother of the boy who 'owns' Chibi), that the cat had been found lifeless in a nearby street corner, presumably having been hit by a passing vehicle. You can imagine how grief-stricken the couple had become.
🐈 The depth of the narrator and his wife's attachment to Chibi could be seen from how they were distressed when the landlady decided to sell the house, which meant that they have to move out. The thought that they would be far away from where Chibi had been buried (under her favorite tree), forced them to find a house nearby from where they could still take a look at the tree. It is clear that they did not have a proper closure to Chibi's tragic demise. And that's understandable, because of the little mystery that surrounds the beloved cat's death. I won't reveal anything here; it is sufficed to say that human's relationship with animals and dealing with grief are two most important aspects of this novella. The ending is ambiguous, highlighting the fact that we could never know everything we want to, and some tragedy could remain mystery forever. One just needs to try to cope with it, and move on.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2026

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

20 Books of Summer 2026
hosted by Annabel @ AnnaBookBel

Paw Prints in the Moonlight (2004) by Denis O'Connor #ReadingtheMeow2026 #20BOS26

🐱 My first read for Reading the Meow 2026, hosted by Mallika, is a heartwarming memoir of a man who once rescued a cat, which would totally change his life forever. Denis O'Connor is a trained psychologist and a teacher. It was in the 1990s that this episode with the rescued cat begins. He was a bachelor then, just bought an eighteen century cottage with a garden called Owl Cottage, in the rural part of Northumberland, England. One biting cold January night, just after a snow storm, Denis found a she-cat in painful agony, trapped in an animal snare usually left by hunters. He saved it, but the cat ran away. The morning after, Denis found the cat in an abandoned farm, dying, but still nursing her three kittens. He brought them all to the vet, but the mother was beyond help, and the vet put her to sleep. The kittens would find the same fate, as they would not survive without their mother. However, Denis, finding one of the three poor kittens responded to his touch, decided on impulse, to bring it home.

🐱 Denis tried hard to nurse the kitten back to life against all odds, realizing that it might die the next day. But days become weeks, and the kitten survived. He called it Toby Jug. And from then on, Denis and Toby Jug are inseparable for the next twelve years. This memoir tells in perfect details of Denis' grim rescue of Toby Jug's mother and siblings, his relentless efforts to save Toby Jug from death, despite his limited resources and knowledge, and then, his happiest adventures with Toby Jug.
🐱 It was later on when Denis brought Toby Jug to a vet, that he first learned that his beloved cat is actually a Maine Coon. From Wikipedia: The Maine Coon is a large and social cat, commonly referred to as "the gentle giant". The Maine Coon is often cited as having "dog-like" characteristics. Toby Jug remains little in size for the rest of her life, but she is a social cat. I loved her way of curling on Denis' shoulder - which caused his jackets of coats to have marks on one shoulder due to Toby Jug's repeatedly claws-digging. She always do that whenever she needs comfort, or when she's scarred. There are few occasions of these, the most terrifying episodes were perhaps during a hunting season, and when some bullying kids throwing fireworks at poor little Toby Jug - damned that kind of kids!
🐱 All her life, Toby Jug is depended on Denis. It is no wonder, because Denis is everything for her - he might have thought him her mother, as he had nursed him from the beginning, and has been living only with her human friend. She only knows humans' way of living, and she would have never been fitted to a wilder life, other than catching a rat every now and then. The most memorable scene for me is when Denis first brought Toby Jug out to the garden. The way she looked, for the first time, at the nature; savouring first one object and then another, and another - all bursting with spring lights and colors and scents - it must have been an overwhelming bliss for her. Afraid that Toby Jug might harm herself, Denis put her inside a large glass jar, and put the jar on the grass. He even moved or shifted the jar a little from time to time so that the kitten might have slightly different views each time.

🐱 Over all, this is a truly heartwarming memoir - more of the cat then the human. I enjoyed every bit of it; in fact I read it very slowly that I ended up reading only this one and one other book (instead of intended three) for #ReadingtheMeow2026 - I just wanted it to last forever... The bonding of Denis and Toby Jug is amazing and very touching. I'm glad that Toby Jug had had a wholesome, albeit short, life - always beloved by her favorite human. At the same time, Toby Jug had, not only changed, but wrought a deep influence in Denis' life. The ending might be rather strange for some people, but I liked it. A deep thanks to Denis O'Connor for ever sharing this part of his life with Toby Jug with us. His writing is so beautiful and gentle, and allows us to be included in every sweet, terrifying, and funny moments with Toby Jug, the little Maine Coon. In the end, I felt as if I have known Toby Jug personally myself. What a sweet and meaningful friendship between a cat and a human!
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2026

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

20 Books of Summer 2026
hosted by Annabel @ AnnaBookBel

Wish You Were Here (1990) by Rita Mae Brown #ReadingtheMeow2025 #20BooksofSummer2025

🐱 For the third and last book I read for #ReadingtheMeow2025, I picked a cat-mystery. Mrs. Murphy is the cat-detective; she's a tiger cat who lives with a divorced-postmistress named Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen as her companion. To complete the household, there's a Welsh Corgi named Tucker. They all live in a small town, where everyone knows about everyone else, and there's not such thing as secret. Harry - as the postmistress - has a habit of reading postcards not addressed to her. In one of these, she found one postcard with Paris cemetery image, captioned "wish you were here". Few days later, a citizen was murdered - the one who'd received the postcard. Then another death, with similar "warning". It was then that Harry realized the significant of the anonymous postcards. There's a murderer among them, and most probably he/she knew that Harry knew more than she supposed to.

🐱 Mrs. Murphy and Tucker don't really fond of humans - they're too slow on anything. Nope, humans don't concern them much. But when it comes to Harry, they'll do anything to protect her. And now, they must solve the mystery before the murderer could harm their beloved mom! One thing that amused me is that the animals in this story talk to each other, but not to the humans. There are a few secondary animal characters, like Pewter - the butcher's grey cat, who often visits the post office. With their helps, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker investigated every murder, and they found a strange smell always accompany the corpse - a smell like that of... turtles (what a turtle smell like, I wonder?...) Anyway, it was they who finally solved the mystery, and they tried hard to let Harry know, but how dense their mom always is - she always thinks they need foods or a few cuddles; like those are all that pets need! 

🐱 All in all, it was a delightful read, combining murder mystery with small town dynamic and cute but smart animals. I loved most of the characters - both humans and animals - though the name "Bonbon" is rather funny for a woman; it got me giggling everytime. As a cat book, this is a fulfilling one, since the cat (supported by its gang) is front and center as the mystery solver.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2025

hosted by Mallika

20 Books of Summer 2025
hosted by Annabel and Emma

The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips (2005) by Michael Morpurgo #ReadingtheMeow2025 #20Booksof Summer2025

🐈 Lily Tregenze is a girl of about 13 years old, who lives in 1943 with her family in Slapton, a seaside village in England, during the World War II. Her father is away, but apart from her missing him, she's quite contend to live with her beloved cat, an adventurous one, called Tips. Everything seems generally good, and the war has not touched their village. Until one day it was announced that the villagers must evacuate, living their house - the lock-stock-and barrel situation - because the Allied troops will use it for practices, before invading France.

🐈 Just when they were about to move to Uncle George's house in nearby village, Tips - the cat - is missing. Lily and the family, helped by two young American soldiers whom Lily had befriended, searched for it without avail. The area around the farm would be barbed-wired, and nobody could enter it after that. But Lily couldn't leave Tips alone, she must find her. Her American soldier friends - Addie (short of Adolphus) and Harry, had promised her that they would keep looking for Tips, and that one day the cat would surely come home. They also warned the danger of being near the vicinity of the practice. But Lily must find Tips, so she made plans to cross the wire, into the danger zone. Would she find Tips - alive? And what would happen next?

🐈 It was a wonderful story of courage, resilience, love, and friendship during the war, which was written in the form of diary - Lily's diary. Sixty years after the war, Lily wrote a letter to her grandson, following her re-marriage and move to a new place. The diary was included in the letter. It told him of her extraordinary life, and how an adventurous cat named Tips had become the key that changed her life - during the war, and even sixty years later. 

🐈 I've actually expected this to be a story from a cat's point of view. Or perhaps a story about the cat's adventures during the war - the kind which tells you the horrible things brought by war but seen from a cat's view, so that it becomes less horrifying, and even comes as cute and sweet. But this one is different. Surprisingly, Tips, the cat, isn't the center of the story. It is an amazing story, but not of Tips - which was implied by the title - although the story wouldn't even exist without Tips. So, the cat here has a very important role. The ending is unexpected, and threw the whole story to another level - made it much more memorable than just an adventure of a cat.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2025

hosted by Mallika

20 Books of Summer 2025

hosted by Annabel and Emma

The Dalai Lama's Cat (2012) by David Michie #ReadingtheMeow2025 #20BooksOfSummer2025

🐈 My first choice for Mallika's #ReadingtheMeow2025 has long intrigued me. I don't know why, but I'm always fascinated by Tibet. Reading Herge's Tintin in Tibet more than forty years ago might be the first trigger. Tibet has been some sort of magnet for me ever since. Then, when you add the cat element in it, how could I ever resist? Hence, it had been my first choice, and I'm not disappointed - it's simply delightful and inspiring.

🐈 I love it when an animal tells a story from its point of view. This story is that - the titular cat told the story of its wonderful life, from near death to the highest point that could possibly be achieved by a cat. She was rescued by the Dalai Lama when, as a kitten, she was being snatched from her mother by two naughty boys who wanted to sell her and her siblings. It was in the street of New Delhi, and Dalai Lama passed by in his car from a visit. She soon became Dalai Lama's pet. And people call her various names, from His Holiness' Cat (HHC) - by Dalai lama himself and his entourage; Rinpoche (meaning precious) - by a cafe owner who's a Buddhism enthusiast; Snow Lion; and The Most Beautiful Creature that Ever Lived - by Dalai Lama's chef.

🐈 Living with Dalai Lama, it's no wonder that HHC gets used to listening to many Buddhism lessons as she's always around when Dalai Lama receives visitors. She's even practicing (or trying to) meditation, in fact, she aspires to be a bodhicatva!🐱 And HHC has a lot of weaknesses to be righted; gluttony is one of them. With her status of His Holiness's Cat, there're people who want to please her. And how one pleases a cat if not by offering foods - delicious foods, which HCC could not resist. And that's how she's getting fatter and fatter. But Dalai Lama's advice to a visitor inspired her to overcome her greediness. That's just an example, she is also guilty of pride, jealousy, and insecurity. She is attracted to a tiger tabby, but feels insecure about her own (non) breeding, and so, plays hard-to-get all the time. Is it wise, though? She just have to sit still on the windowsill of Dalai Lama's study, to get the answer.

🐈 In short, this is a book "written" by a cat who tells you her own story, while at the same time imparts spiritual lessons of how to live a happier and more wholesome life. I love it when a cat writes a book, especially if it has a well-balanced proportion between cat's daily life and its interaction with human beings. Of course, HHC's observation on Dharamsala and Jokhang monastery and temple life, brought to me by the cat's point of view every time she perches high on the magazine shelf at the cafe, or while wondering on the Dharamsala streets and alleyways - it made this an even wholesome book. Even if you aren't a cat person, this book is funny, charming, and inspiring, without being preachy.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2025

hosted by Mallika

20 Books of Summer 2025
hosted by Annabel and Emma

Blitzcat (1989) by Robert Westall #ReadingtheMeow2024 #20booksofsummer24

🐈 Lord Gort is not the ordinary sort of a lord. In fact he's not even a human being. Lord Gort is a black ordinary pet cat, and he's actually a 'she'. At the start of WW2, her beloved human, a British wing-commander in the RAF left home to fight the Germans. Unable to cope with her mistress (whom she don't really like)and the noisy new baby at home, Lord Gort set out on a journey to track down her human.

🐈 Of course Lord Gort didn't really know where Geoffrey Wensley, her human, really was. She only used her instinct. She felt that he was moving away to the north, fir instance, then she would direct her way there. Her human kept moving to different directions all the time, and she'd always turn diligently the same way. Along the way, she met with many adventures, touched many people's lives, and experienced many degrees of the war. In short, through her eyes, we are brought to witness people's struggles as well as resilience against the war.

🐈 Lord Gort, by the way, was named after a British commander whose troops were trapped in Dunkirk, when she's a kitten. Her humans foolishly thought she's a tomcat. Her name caused a funny incident that opens the story nicely, a clever way to plunge us into the middle of war in a lighter way than it could have been.

🐈 As a domestic cat, Lord Gort depended on kind people to get food and shelter. So, for a time, she would stay with someone who cared for her. But when she sensed that her human was moving further away, she would just leave her current temporary person, to continue her journey. Unintentionally, the cat often brought luck or salvation to the people she had stayed with. Her acute sense of danger saved one woman from bombing, and inadvertently forced the other to get up from her fear.

🐈 When Lord Gort was staying with a rear-gunner in the RAF station, the gunner named Tommy believed that the black cat brought him luck, so that he always brought her whenever they flew away to shoot any German's airplane. I found it quite funny at first, because here in Indonesia, especially in Java island where I live, black cat is superstitiously believed to bring bad luck. I didn't realized that in some other Western countries, it's the opposite. Superstitious aside, I think Lord Gort the black cat is just an ordinary cat. She just happened to be at the right place at the right time when people need hope and distraction during the darkest times of war. I loved her nonchalant way of just leaving behind her temporary persons, and focusing to her one and only purpose.

🐈 On the whole, it's a wholesome read for me. It's not too bleak for a war story, as it's sprinkled with chuckle-worthy scenes here and there. And it's not overly sappy for a cat-themed story, for there's deeper emotion of human struggles and triumphs in it too. It's just the kind of cat story that I love and enjoy very much!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2024

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

20 Books of Summer 2024
hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books

The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael by Agatha Christie #AgathaChristieSS24 #ReadingTheMeow2024

🐈 First of all, I don't know why I had thought this was an Hercule Poirot story, while it's not. It's another of the "no detective stories", but what a story it had been! It has an element of cat, so I included this to my #ReadingTheMeow2024.

🐈 Sir Arthur Carmichael is a twenty-three year old young man, an heir of his father's estate, who hasn't been well these last two weeks. In fact, his case so perplexed his doctor, that he invited his colleague Doctor Carstairs, a renown psychologist, to give his opinion. What the problem was, the doctor didn't tell his friend so that he would form his own impression after seeing the patient by himself.

🐈 Arriving to the estate, Carstairs saw a young girl, Arthur's fiancée in fact, with a grey Persian cat walking by her legs. But why did his friend grew pale when he mentioned the cat? And not just the doctor, the others at the house were automatically silent when he mentioned the grey cat, which he continually heard at night meowing or scratching at his door, but there's no one around when he opened it. And no one saw it either - or rather, there had been a grey cat in the house belonged to Arthur's step mother, but it's been dead two weeks ago!

🐈 But the doctor put it aside for the time being, and he soon got to the mysterious condition of the patient. The young man wasn't himself, and Carstairs noticed that his manner had become so similar to.... a cat! He behaves exactly like cat, even pounding over a mouse! So, there's a cat that no one but Carstairs saw, and there's a healthy young man who turned into cat. What mystery lies beneath it all

🐈 It's actually quite an interesting read, though not surprising, considering the era's fascination over occultism and superstition. Agatha Christie herself had elaborated these themes with the Mr. Quin stories. I quite enjoyed it, the solution of the "murder" might be unusual, but on the whole, it's quite entertaining.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read also for:

Reading the Meow 2024

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency (2014) by Mandy Morton #ReadingtheMeow2024

🐈 I have read quite a lot of cozy mysteries with a variety of partnering amateur sleuths, from teenagers to septuagenarians, from human couples to human-animal ones, but never of... cats. This is a story about cats in a world where cats live and think like human beings.

🐈 Hettie Bagshot has buried her past as rock and roll musician (the story is set around the 1960s), and, now being broke, tries to build her future by founding a detective agency: The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, with her friend Tilly Jenkins. Their first case came from Furcross, an institutional home for slightly older cats. Three of the residents' dead body were stolen from their graves.

🐈 If you're hoping that this book is a sweet funny murder mystery, you'd be disappointed. There are some funny elements in it, like naming the characters from some famous personages in the 1960s like Coco Channel and Elizabeth Taylor. There are also endearing moments in the lives of Hettie and Tilly, like their daily routines in their home and office, how they manage the household in a rented upstairs room of a bakery, where they used coupons to procure meals, and how they count upon free lunches or dinners from their client. Tilly's love of cardigans and dream of possessing television set is also sweet. But the mystery involved some macabre facts which gave the story a contrast vibe.

🐈 The mystery itself is rather confusing and also unsettling, and the investigation runs halfheartedly, as what Hettie thinks most of the time is just how to get free meals. But maybe it's just as well, since the detectives are cats? Anyway, the plot twist in the end seems unnecessary. And it seems weird that there are no law institutions in the cats' world, so everyone seems to just do whatever they want. Moreover, the cats think like humans, but physically they are still cats, need grooming and all. But through the book I kept thinking, how they could button their shirts or cardigans with their paws? I know this is an anthropomorphic book, but I just couldn't really relate much with the characters. My only consolation from is just the mouthwatering foods often mentioned throughout the story. Furcoat's Jamaican cook is becoming Hettie and Tilly's friend, and she's a wonderful cook.

🐈 All in all, it's a weird story, that I could have managed to finish it at all was because I wanted to see Tilly gets a happy ending she really deserves. Other than that, this is a series I would definitely NOT read further.

Rating: ⭐⭐1/2

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2024

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

20 Books of Summer 2024
hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (1966) by Lilian Jackson Braun #ReadingtheMeow2024 #20booksofsummer24

🐈 Jim Qwilleran, an award-winning crime reporter, started his new job as feature writer for the Daily Fluxion, specializing at artists profile, though he knew very little about art. Desperate to move out from his current uncomfortable flat, he grabs the offer from the paper's infamous art critic George Bonifield Montclemens, to rent a small apartment in his building.

🐈 Qwilleran's landlord is well known for his ruthless critics of modern artists, making him a hateful character amongst the art people. But Qwilleran begins to be warm towards his quirky landlord, as besides a comfortable though tiny living quarter, he also enjoys, occasionally, Montclemens' delicious cooking of fine-dining quality of foods, and the company of his extraordinary Siamese male cat called Kao K'o-Kung - or Koko to Qwilleran.

🐈 Indeed, Koko is no ordinary cat. Apart from his elegant regal demeanor, his hobby is reading newspaper - yes, reading! - but backwards. Koko has a delicate taste in food, and his favorite game is a mouse toy. When his master's busy or not at home, he even lets Qwill to have him as company.

🐈 At this point you might start wondering whether this is a murder mystery after all as we don't see one yet? It is! An art gallery owner was murdered in his office, while some paintings at the gallery were destroyed. But Qwill noticed something else that only few people could have known. A painting of ballerina that used to hang in the office is missing. Has the murderer stolen it?

🐈 As Qwilleran has been warming his way through the art world, he has the most advantage and enough inside knowledge to solve the mystery. Then, when Montclemens is also murdered, Koko joins paws with Qwill to reveal the truth around the murders. Koko led him to find some clues, not purr-posely of course, but unintentionally. Like when Koko takes Qwill to where his favorite toy - Minty Mouse - was last put, Qwill found interesting facts that helped him in his investigation.

🐈 All in all, it's a highly entertaining cozy mystery with interesting premise - the art world. I loved Koko-Qwilleran's budding chemistry in this book, and hope to see them together in further cases. I also loved them each as character. The whole story has a humorous and intelligent vibes with plausible and proportionate interactions between cat and human, while the mystery has an interesting plot. No need to say, it's a wonderful beginning of a series, which I would definitely continue to read!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2024

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

20 Books of Summer 2024
hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books