Rating: 
Summary: Not so good...
Review: Okay, how one guy can write three books about his ordinary cat is beyond me (this book is the third in the series) but all I know is that he's a little too attached to this feline. Not that I don't love cats, I do. But I have to tell you that this book was one of the most dull I've ever read in my entire exsistence. Mostly it's not about the cat at all (which betrays the title). It's about the author. This old guy from New York who insists on telling us, as readers, every insignifigant thing that has ever happened to him in his entire life. No offense of course to this man (who I'm sure is very nice) but geez, this book definitly isn't for everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps less Cleveland, and more Polar Bear, is in order
Review: THE BEST CAT EVER by Cleveland Amory is a bit of a sham, though certainly not one that is unattractive or was created out of malice. In the prologue, Amory writes about his deceased pet cat, Polar Bear:"I shall dwell ... on the past and the fun we had for the fifteen years we had together." As the reader discovers, this is just not so. As a matter of fact, most of the author's narrative is born of the time before Polar Bear came into his life. Amory remembers his first job. Amory ruefully recounts his brief stint as a Hollywood scriptwriter. Amory tells of his association with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor when he was commissioned to ghost-write the autobiography of the latter. Amory revisits his time as a reviewer for TV Guide. Or, if after, then THE BEST CAT EVER gets hardly more than honorable mention. Amory discusses arthritis and its cures. Amory revisits his alma mater, Harvard. Amory is hit by a truck. I can't say that this short book isn't entertaining. If I had harbored, before picking it up, any interest in the author, and if the book and been entitled REMINISCENCES OF CLEVELAND (or something of the sort), then I should happily award 4, and perhaps 5, stars. Amory is indeed talented and astute, as when he states of Wallis Warfield's morganatic marriage to the abdicated King Edward VIII: "If she settled for being a morganatic wife, not only would she not be a Queen, she would have settled for something which, to her at least, sounded all too much like being a peasant." Amory's dry wit notwithstanding, I can only award 3 stars because Polar Bear, most of the time, just isn't there. The best chapter is certainly the last, in which Cleveland poignantly and sadly describes his beloved pet's last illness and the trauma of having him put to sleep. (I was, perhaps, reminded of the advancing age of my own cat, Trouble. While still healthy at 10 years, that heartbreaking time will certainly come for her also.) There are better books to be savored on the relationship between a human and its feline owner. Offhand, I can name three: I & CLAUDIUS by Clare De Vries, THE CAT WHO COVERED THE WORLD by Christopher Wren, and MY CAT SPIT MCGEE by Willie Morris.
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