Why is a Cat like a Book: Take 5

Look at it this way: a book on a shelf is just a book until you open it up and read it. A cat on a shelf is just a cat until you interact with it. It's only after you make a connection that both book and cat can affect you.

I know that Kitty O gives me lots of pleasure, whether he purrs or not. And I can't tell you how many countless times I have looked up from a book I am reading to discover it is dark outside and yet when I started on the first page it was shortly after noon! I keep going back to the same pages that gave me pleasure, provided insights, comforted me, centered me. I go to Kitty O as well because he does the same thing, though in his case, he leaves his furs all over me!

I often wonder how people feel about my first mystery, "The Girl Who Went Missing." Did they find that time flew as they read it? Did they like the Mumbai setting or was it too different for them, the disparity augmented by Indian names? Did they find the topic, human trafficking, off putting? Or did they realize that I wanted to use a mystery in order to highlight the tragedy that is happening all around us, though hidden so that it is not in your face the way my book is?

We would all be lesser, I think, without books and cats. I can't claim to create a cat, and I hope that "The Girl Who Went Missing," along with the one I am working on now, "While The Children Slept," will give someone, somewhere, both pleasure and knowledge. Just like Kitty O gives me pleasure by curling up beside me, though the knowledge I always take from him is that I will never, every, truly get him. Vive la différence between cat and human! But I always say, Vive all books!