BOOK STORE CATS

This is Ash the cat who presides over Borderland Books, my favorite bookstore in the Bay Area. (And one of my favorite bookstores on the planet.) I’m posting the following story because it’s the silly season and also to escape the weight of the general malaise and misery of the world – the Rusian drought and the Pakistani floods, to name but two – and all the other things that seem to be going so worst-case, predictably wrong. I’m also posting it to buy time while I write something succinct and intelligent to counter all this Chicken-Little nonsense about the imminent demise of books which serves little or no purpose except to hasten the demise of writers. I’m hoping I’ll have the thing finished by tomorrow or the day after. Keep watching the skies.

"There's nothing quite like spending time in a neighborhood bookstore. Walk the aisles, often comfortingly creaky from the footsteps of so many curious wanderers who have come before you, and your eyes are drawn across thousands of titles, inviting you to enter countless worlds, lives, experiences. And it doesn't hurt if a cat is lounging about. When they aren't trashing the occasional pricey manuscript with their teeth and claws, cats - in all their blissful sloth - serve as wonderfully calming (if sometimes haughty) hosts: Have a seat, take it easy, get lost in a book. A bookstore cat is a shop's mascot and keeper, equally adept at charming customers and, when the lights go out, chasing away rodents. And so let us celebrate these furry souls - hopefully not an endangered species! - as more and more readers get their books delivered in shrink-wrapped packages from out-of-state corporate behemoths, or transmitted, in blips, to hand-held devices no cat would ever want to cuddle up to.” Click here for more

Click here for Bo

The secret word is Territory