On Books (Part Seven)

Last night I looked at t-shirts and bumper stickers at an online store. The featured artwork? Bibliophiles and librarians, of course.

Among my favorite designs was one featuring a cat curled up on top of an open book, and printed under it the words "All books belong to me." This combines two of my favorite things: books and cats. And I like them both for similar reasons, actually.

Really? What can possibly be similar about a cat and a book? Just one thing: you can love them without surrendering your own independence. Unlike dogs, who regardless of how laudably loyal and happy and unselfish and noble they are, are needy. Aside from all the drool and the smell and the kibble and the barking and the fact that they'll eat anything (ew), dogs just need too much attention. Cats, on the other hand, have no issue with self-esteem. If you choose not to hang out with them for a while, they don't get all emotional about it. They're too well-adjusted to really care if you don't like sleeping with them plastered against your body. A book is kind of like that too. You can start to read it, then get distracted and leave it somewhere for days, weeks, months, even years sometimes ... and when you come back to it, nothing has changed but yourself.

There is another very weird thing about me. I have allowed both cats and books to be in the bed with me when I sleep.

P.S. I downloaded iBooks and got all the ones I wanted from Project Gutenberg. Not sure how much I'll actually use it, though. And I also sleep with my phone.