The World Of Cats

The World of Cats by David Gibbon, published by CLB Publishing in 1993, is a broad and affectionate look at the domestic cat: an animal which has spent several thousand years persuading humans that providing food, shelter and comfortable furniture is somehow our idea.

This is the sort of book that celebrates cats in all their extraordinary variety, from elegant pedigree breeds to the more robust domestic specimens who have never shown the slightest interest in ancestry and would rather inspect a cardboard box.

David Gibbon explores the feline world through breeds, behaviour, appearance and the long relationship between cats and people. It is a subject with almost unlimited material, because cats manage the rare trick of being both deeply familiar and consistently mysterious.

We think we know them. We live with them, feed them, name them and buy them expensive sleeping equipment. They then ignore all of it and sleep in the packaging.

The book covers the range of recognised breeds and types, with the visual appeal you would expect from a general illustrated cat book. Long-haired, short-haired, sleek, fluffy, aristocratic, peculiar-looking and gloriously ordinary examples all make an appearance, demonstrating that selective breeding has produced a remarkable amount of variation from an animal which still basically believes the kitchen belongs to it.

Cats are also fascinating because domestication has never entirely removed the original machinery. Beneath the respectable household exterior remains an alert little predator equipped with claws, extraordinary balance and the ability to become violently interested in absolutely nothing visible to humans.

Published in 1993, The World of Cats comes from a pleasantly pre-social-media age when photographs of cats had to justify their existence by appearing in actual books. There were no endless feeds of kittens falling off sofas, no algorithms calculating your preferred breed, and no requirement for the cat to have its own account and sponsorship deal.

Instead, the reader gets something considerably more civilised: a proper book in which one can turn the pages at leisure and inspect cats without being interrupted by adverts for subscription pet food.

It should appeal to cat owners, animal lovers, collectors of illustrated natural-history books, breed enthusiasts and anyone who has ever found themselves apologising to a cat for sitting in the chair the cat had apparently reserved.

There is also something reassuringly timeless about the subject. Human fashions change constantly. Cat behaviour does not. A cat in 1993 could ignore you, wake you at an unreasonable hour and demand access to a room only to immediately request departure, just as efficiently as one can today.

Condition: Good. A sound used copy with normal signs of age and handling. It has survived since 1993 in respectable shape, which is more than can be said for many soft furnishings subjected to prolonged feline ownership.

ISBN: 185833067X.

A charming general introduction to cats, their breeds and their peculiar hold over human beings, ideal for anyone who enjoys animal books or simply wants documentary evidence that people have been indulging cats for a very long time.

Sold by Crappy Old Books — where the books may be second-hand, but the cats still assume everything is theirs.

Keep browsing: See more Animals books Other books by David Gibbon