A rich, moving story of the link between a street-wise cat and a man who earns his living on the streets—perfect for cat...
How a cat helped one man on the road to recovery from drugs.
"I was a failed musician and recovering drug addict living a hand-to-mouth existence in sheltered accommodation,” writes London street musician Bowen. “Taking responsibility for myself was hard enough.” So when a mangy, unneutered tomcat with a festering sore on his leg hung around his apartment building several days in a row, it was with some trepidation that the author invited the cat, whom he named Bob, into his home. Little did Bowen know that this simple act of kindness would create such a bond between them. Earning his living as a street musician in London's Covent Garden, Bowen had to busk on a daily basis to survive. The added responsibility of an injured cat prompted the author to play more frequently and for longer hours; it was only when Bob came with him to Covent Garden that Bowen realized their relationship had deepened into a true friendship. The oddity of seeing a handsome ginger cat curled into a guitar case caused people to stop and chat, take pictures and give more generously than they had in the past. Bowen moved from being a street bum to someone people recognized and wanted to talk to, and Bob was given all sorts of handmade clothes, treats and toys. The author describes delightful moments spent with Bob as well as a harrowing instance when the cat streaked off into the city streets after being threatened by a dog. With confidence gained through his ability to earn money and to tend to Bob's needs, Bowen was finally able to kick his drug dependency and make amends with his estranged mother.
A rich, moving story of the link between a street-wise cat and a man who earns his living on the streets—perfect for cat lovers.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-02946-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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