Judith Adler matches peaceful pictures of cats with various quotations from throughout history to create “Zen Cat”.

It’s funny, even though I consider myself a “cat person”, I liked Adler’s Zen Dog more than this feline version.

Cats are so contained. When you’re looking at the photos of the dogs, there’s an exuberance or bottled energy there that just doesn’t seem to show up for the cats. 

However, the book does have beautiful photos and quotations. Take this one from Rumi that is arranged next to a photo of a black cat viewing itself in a mirror: “We are the mirror as well as the face in it. We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.

Or this one by Buddha which is paired with a cat on an urban street: “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.”

And finally, a simple photo of a grey cat looking directly at the camera: “I love all solitary places, where we taste the pleasure of believing what we see is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Even though I found the dog version more compelling, cat lovers may still feel the need to have this as a coffee table book. For everybody else, I recommend borrowing it from the library.

Thanks for reading!

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