With her lighthearted yet authoritative approach, Brown helps us better understand our feline companions.
A scientist of cat behavior explores the various ways domestic cats communicate.
Brown, author of The Cat: A Natural and Cultural History, began studying cat behavior in the late 1980s while gaining her doctorate and working as a research assistant at the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Southampton in the UK. As she notes, domestic cats descended from “shy, solitary North African wildcats” and now can be found throughout the world, including in more than 45 million households in the U.S. The author approaches her study of domestic cats from a scientific perspective, offering her firsthand observations and analysis of recent research studies in a writing style that is easily comprehendible and captivating. According to Brown, one of the cat’s primary communication tactics is marking territory through spraying and scratching. But don’t automatically yell at your cat to stop it. “Tension and conflict within the home,” she writes, “may bring on more scratching than normal as the cat feels the urge to increase their marking behavior.” Brown examines alternatives to the invasive and painful procedure of declawing, and she discusses the true purpose of meowing, noting that the rate of meowing tends to increase the longer feral cats are in the company of humans, as well as how cats use their tails and ears to express emotions. The author shares the benefits, beyond hygiene, that cats receive from grooming each other and investigates the “secret ingredient” of catnip and other plants that provide a special allure for cats. Brown also ponders the question of whether cats have personalities and discusses the “Five-Factor Scale of Domestic Cat Personality,” known as the “Feline Five,” to analyze cat temperament. As the research that Brown presents indicates, cats have made impressive strides in adapting and learning to communicate with humans.
With her lighthearted yet authoritative approach, Brown helps us better understand our feline companions.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780593186411
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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