Rating: 
Summary: A keeper.
Review: When it comes to cats, I'm a sap. There is only one cat in my house, and there will be for quite awhile because my cat will not tolerate any others in her presence. In fact, if you were to attempt such a foolish task as trying to introduce another feline in our house you would be faced with my cat bullying the other to the bottom of our couch in the living room, and observing pieces of hair everywhere that my cat has pulled out of the other. In our futile attempt to find a way to alleviate this behavior, my wife and I went through several books, dozens of phone calls to veterinarians in Lincoln and Omaha (Nebraska) and were never to find a way to keep our tort shell from beating up on the calico kitten we brought home. Finally, however, we had to give the calico to my stepdaughter. In our desperate attempt to find a way to stop Pokeman (yes, at last I reveal the cat's name) from being a bully we discovered this wonderful book by Barbara Holland. It starts with a tale of hope for our family with a short essay called "The Conversion of Boston Blackie". Boston Blackie was a stray that would terrify all the other cats in the author's household. It became so bad that Ms. Holland actually hired someone to assassinate Blackie. As it turns out, there was no need to do so, as for some reason the cat converted. Truly a story that kept us going for awhile in our fruitless attempt to convert our cat. There's great stuff in this book, including the one I mentioned, some of it very sad (a story of a woman who would only let her cat live alone in a basement), some of it useful (how to wash a cat to prevent allergens from reacting). Lyrical, recommended, and picked up at our house and browsed through frequently.
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