Rating: 
Summary: Good book of cat stories but disappointing.
Review: This is an interesting subject but the author did not take this to it's full potential. At times a difficult & confusing read and the author consistently contradicts himself regarding the subject matter and seems to not be able to make even his own mind up regarding even his own theories. Most of the narrative of the text is over-psychologised and preachy (possibly PETA sympathies & bias), and the author jumps from one subject to another without completing his previous thoughts & analysis on the emotion he's talking about at that particular time. The stories of the author's cats are amusing and interesting but the analysis is contradictory. At times, the emotions his cats clearly exhibit the author ends up discrediting the proof and then in the next sentence he changes his mind. This is a study & observation of the author's own cats, not a study of many over a long period. Just as human beings are of a same species,all are different & have different personalities, so too I believe animals have unique personalities and traits that are unique to them, in addition to the emotions that are universal to them.I'm a licensed veterinary technician, specializing in emergency and critical care and have 6 cats of my own, along with a German Shepherd dog, and a lot of the emotional traits the author states cats do not have, I have observed that they do have, both in my own feline companions and also in the ones I care for. This book seems more of a thesis collection of data and amusing observations instead of information regarding this great creation of God, the cat, and the feelings & emotions of genuine love that this living being truly has. I was so excited about this topic in animals finally being written about but was disappointed in that this wasn't further expounded upon in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good book of cat stories but disappointing.
Review: This is an interesting subject but the author did not take this to it's full potential. At times a difficult & confusing read and the author consistently contradicts himself regarding the subject matter and seems to not be able to make even his own mind up regarding even his own theories. Most of the narrative of the text is over-psychologised and preachy (possibly PETA sympathies & bias), and the author jumps from one subject to another without completing his previous thoughts & analysis on the emotion he's talking about at that particular time. The stories of the author's cats are amusing and interesting but the analysis is contradictory. At times, the emotions his cats clearly exhibit the author ends up discrediting the proof and then in the next sentence he changes his mind. This is a study & observation of the author's own cats, not a study of many over a long period. Just as human beings are of a same species,all are different & have different personalities, so too I believe animals have unique personalities and traits that are unique to them, in addition to the emotions that are universal to them. I'm a licensed veterinary technician, specializing in emergency and critical care and have 6 cats of my own, along with a German Shepherd dog, and a lot of the emotional traits the author states cats do not have, I have observed that they do have, both in my own feline companions and also in the ones I care for. This book seems more of a thesis collection of data and amusing observations instead of information regarding this great creation of God, the cat, and the feelings & emotions of genuine love that this living being truly has. I was so excited about this topic in animals finally being written about but was disappointed in that this wasn't further expounded upon in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Emotional Lives of Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's Cats
Review: This is not the book about cats that it wants to be. The acclaimed author is uncomfortably personal and intrusive and manages to be in the way like a young father too proud of his new video camera to just tape his children at play. To budding authors, this book could serve as a warning: What can go wrong when you become too famous for your own good and you believe your audience will find you as interesting as you find yourself. Who cares whether the author is a personal friend of other authors? A good editor will help (read: force) an eager and proud writer to remove himself from his treatment of the topic and make it interesting to people who have no interest in the author, and this is more important the more famous the author. Nancy Miller is acknowledged with editing this book, but it is depressingly unedited. The author is also a "provocative psychoanalyst", but there is no evidence of a scholastic aptitude here. To make matters worse, a childhood encounter with a narcissistic literary critic is only related on page 6, not learned from: That paragraph describes how the entire book feels to the reader. Do look inside the book. However, if you tolerate the author and want to snuggle up with your cat and him for company, it may be an OK book to read a chapter from each night, as it is both charming and sometimes amusing, but if you intend to study or just learn about the presumed emotional lives of cats, forget it. This reviewer believes that cats communicate with us the same way music does, directly to our emotions before thought can intervene, and sought more information on the emotional bond between cat and human. Since Doris Lessing learned from this book and Desmond Morris found it thought-provoking, perhaps the gems they found were on the very next page, but the book merely ran out of pages. To make matters worse, it does not conclude, it ends with an epilogue, to confirm the impression that the book is not about the emotional lives of cats, but about the author and his too brief fascination for his too many too young cats. Like a term paper handed in with the tacit assumption that reader and writer know and accept a purpose outside of the text, the question "why should I care?" is as unanswered as it is unasked. There are anywhere from 12 to 15 different emotions crammed into the "nine lives" that double as chapters, which is much too cute to be convenient, much less insightful: Narcissism, Love, Contentment, Attachment, Jealousy, Fear, Anger, Curiosity, Playfulness. If you have taken an active part in a cat's life for a year, you know more about all of these than this book can offer.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: Unfortunately, I did purchase this book as a guide to understanding my cat better. I guess I should have realized it would only help understand the author's cats better. Purely anecdotal accounts, no real expertise or science to his assertions. That may sound like no big deal, but realistically, every cat owner has a cute little story about their cat and an opinion about what they are thinking. So I was hoping this would go beyond his cute little cat stories. Frankly, by the third section, everything he said was running together, as there were no real main points presented. Also, I found it tiring to hear him talk about himself so much. Even his cats don't get full focus in this book, it's mostly him and his swims and walks on the beach. I wanted some depth and got a shallow swim with this one.
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