Shelf lives of bookstore cats

[Kadie]

:)

Shelf lives of bookstore cats
John McMurtrie

San Francisco Chronicle August 8, 2010 04:00 AM


There's nothing quite like spending time in a neighborhood bookstore. Walk the aisles, often comfortingly creaky from the footsteps of so many curious wanderers who have come before you, and your eyes are drawn across thousands of titles, inviting you to enter countless worlds, lives, experiences. And it doesn't hurt if a cat is lounging about.

snip...
And so let us celebrate these furry souls - hopefully not an endangered species! - as more and more readers get their books delivered in shrink-wrapped packages from out-of-state corporate behemoths, or transmitted, in blips, to hand-held devices no cat would ever want to cuddle up to. The profiles below were submitted by Northern California bookstores.

Read more and pictures at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/08/RV951EOCSQ.DTL#ixzz0w35uQCfp


Ash
Photo: Courtesy / Borderland Books


The profiles of the cats are available in this PDF

http://cdn.sfgate.com/chronicle/acrobat/2010/08/08/catschart08.pdf

[aquart]

1. Get that poor, hairless thing a sweater.

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. hee!

[Warren Stupidity]

2. I'm afraid the bookstore is doomed.

The economics of ebooks is compelling. We are losing what is left of our urban community - local bookstores were done in first by Borders and B&N, who are now in turn under assault from apple and amazon. We are cocooned in our air-conditioned nightmare suburban boxes. 3D Big Screens, Kindles and I-pads and who needs to go out and ugh interact with real people when we can just tweet?

The livable cities are the domain of the upper classes, the poor consigned to the failed post industrial urban wrecks or the peripheral sprawl, the vast middle class struggling with our sad and doomed american dream of suburban isolation.

[provis99]

6. jeez dude. You need a happy pill.

It's not the end of the world yet.

[SoCalNative]

10. My city has 2 local bookstores

in the same block that have been there for decades. This with both a Borders and Barnes and Noble right down the street.

Everyone does not like the idea of ebooks, or always buying online.

[Texasgal]

11. I'm one of those people

I cannot imagine looking at a kindle... I like the feel and smell of a book.

I am also such a voracious reader that I cannot afford the big book stores, my habit limits me to the little guys!

[crikkett]

22. Easy thing to say, until the lights go out.

When all else fails the hard copy prevails.

[Odin2005]

3. KITTY!

:D

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. Awww!

[pnorman]

17. I'm gonna save that image!

I also recall one of my favorite bookstores in Seattle a while back, that must have had at least a dozen cats jn residence. In a city that was (then) LOADED with bookstores, that was easily my favorite one. I'd like to say that those cats greeted my presence by joyous barking and vigorous tail-wagging, but you know cats!

[Warpy]

5. It wasn't just bookstores back in Boston

and the health inspector looked the other way when there was a food store cat because that cat meant the place had much less of a rodent problem.

I always sought out the store cats for pets and scritches and was on good speaking terms with many of them.

[postulater]

7. Hairless cat - proof that evolution doesn't happen.

:crazy:

[LWolf]

8. Books and cats: two of life's great pleasures.

My cat competes with my book for space in my lap. Where ever the book is, that's where she wants to nap.

[Cleita]

9. Our local nurseries also have cats that live in them

usually a stray that wandered in, got fed and then adopted by the workers who look after them. Also, our local home depot has a adopted a squirrel that lives in the nursery section. I don't know if management knows about it yet.

But a bookstore with a kitty is just special.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. decades ago, our Sears garden section had 2 cats and a bird

[Silver Swan]

14. The public library here

Is home to two cats.

Cats and books. What's not to like?

[MineralMan]

15. I love all kinds of shops that have resident cats.

Often, they hang out in a basket or something near the cash register...just waiting for the casual head scratches from customers. It's always good to see.

[Brickbat]

16. My grocery store in Russia had several cats that would fight under the counters.

It was a little nasty, but I guess it kept the mice down.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I wish I could say that I am not an Ebook consumer

but that is the future.

And I must say it, if I bought each and every one of the books I have downloaded from Google over the last few months...

Or for that matter better laid editions...

And a few of those are NO LONGER in print anyway.

[AnnieBW]

19. Those Borderlands Kittehs are Real Snuggle-Bunnies!

When we visited there last year, they were all over me like white on rice! They probably smelled our kitties on our clothes, even though we were on the other side of the country. Of course, I really appreciated NOT getting hair all over me.

[tuckessee]

20. I have the perfect cat for a book store.

She's a tortie named Lulu who spots silverfish. When I see her staring at an odd area I know she's spotted one and I go over kill it.

She guards my personal library/collection.

I'm beginning to supect, however, that she's entered into a mutual non-agression pact with the mice. :-(

[MilesColtrane]

21. That cat in your post is obviously intent upon influencing patrons to....

purchase books by Aleister Crowley.