Cats and Books

One of the season's bestselling books is Dewey, the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter. Many are expecting this book to reach the popularity of Marley & Me. Themes in the book include more than the life and times of Dewey -- it is the story of a small town in Iowa during some tough times.

Dewey was discovered in the Spencer library’s overnight drop box in January 1988, a time when Iowa was in the midst of an economic chill that had gripped the nation. Spencer is a town that hasn’t changed much since the 1930s, with a downtown of family-owned stores in connecting two- and three-story brick buildings, a second-run movie theater and The Hen House, which sells decorating items to farmwives.

Seems Dewey is credited with increasing patronage of the library from 60,000 visitors a year to 100,000, including a film crew from Japan. Looks like I'm not the only one who will go out of my way to visit a library, bookstore or any other environment where there's a friendly, well-loved cat in charge of things. I had the pleasure of a very friendly encounter with a beautiful gray with green-eyes cat at Camino nursery just yesterday. It just added to the already great experience of being at wonderful, locally-owned nursery on a gorgeous October day.

This book is definitely on my TBR list.