A Book of Bothersome Cats is a witty examination of social annoyances through illustrated rhymes featuring anthropomorphous cats. The book begins and ends with the character Cat, who ruminates over the myriad types of irritating felines that darken his mood. These include: a cat that makes robot calls, one that talks in a loud protracted manner in restaurants, another that writes insipid elevator and telephone tunes, an online troll, a hoarder, and a bully. Cat spares no one, with a sardonic look at dictatorships, nationalism, conspiracy theories, and various problematic ideologies. Disorganization, procrastination, and nit-picking control are included in the retinue of feline foibles.
The detailed drawings in this book are rich with patterns and hidden surprises. Look for the cation among the chemical structures in Chemical Cat. Find snippets of Russian Cyrillic and Chinese characters in Border Wall Cat and Oligarch Cat. Look for literary allusions in the feline reading material. Art history insinuates itself throughout in renderings of famous paintings such as Gericault's Face of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy on the wall of the Jealous Cat's home. Proper Cat sits down to tea with a buttoned up, staid old woman who decorates her home with pictures of subjects that might rile a censor. Pictures within Pictures abound in depictions of detailed embroideries, batiks and paintings, all of which tweak the social mores of our time.
A Book of Bothersome Cats will be a welcome addition to libraries of Cat fans, friends of cat lovers as well as for those who appreciate satire with teeth and claws.
