I was delighted to see that “man’s best friend” has been featured on the Main’s card catalog display and earlier this week on the blog. As a lover of animals of all types, I’m always cheered when others appreciate the power of the companion animal and as someone who has had the privilege to own both dogs and cats, I feel a cat post is necessary to balance things out. So this week will get “bookended” with the other type of best friend, although perhaps, instead of man’s best friend, cats should be called “book’s best friend”.

While we all know that cats have invaded the Internet in memes, pictures and videos, they’ve long been a symbol of wildness, domesticity and a host of other contradictory attributes. While I Can Has Cheezburger caused many cat memes to go viral, they weren’t the original LolCats. As it turns out, we’ve been obsessed with cat pictures since photography was streamlined. Authors Aurthur Arluke and Lauren Rolfe researched and published a book of 50 years of cat photos… starting in 1890! These photos were used to further the suffragette cause, to add dimension to family portraits and sometimes, it seems, just to make cats look silly.

For some reason, cats also seem to go well with books. Perhaps it’s their more quiet temperaments. Dogs, while great, are frequently energetic. Cats, by their own biological needs, sleep most of their days, often in cozy spots or basking in the sun and occasionally in unlikely poses. I think readers can identify with this as we settle into a reading position in a cozy spot, sometimes in the sun, and sometimes in unlikely poses.

No one seemed to understand this confluence of books and cats like Ernest Hemingway, who, after keeping so many cats at his home in Key West that mated and perpetrated a genetic polydactyl trait down through generations, earned the distinction of having cats with that extra “finger” on their paw called Hemingway cats. And then we come full circle back to the internet, which has also recognized the compatibility of books and cats in the Tumblr, The Literary Cat.

To celebrate the feline-literary combination, here are some books will make you purr…

The Good, the Bad, and the Furry by Tom Cox

Written by blogger and Instagrammer Tom Cox whose popular Why My Cat is Sad posts have taken on a life of their own, this book is filled with cat pictures, funny anecdotes and Cox’s attempts to psychoanalyze random cats he sees, this book is likely to keep you laughing and pondering the existential crises of cats all at the same time.

Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

This heartwarming tale could have ended badly when a small kitten was stuffed in the book return slot at the Spencer Public Library on the coldest night of the year. But librarian Vicki Myron found this sick little kitten, nursed him back to health and he graced the stacks and charmed the staff and patrons of the Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa for nineteen years.

The Big Cat Nap by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown

Brown has been giving her cat co-author credit throughout all of her Mrs. Murphy mysteries and these cozies have delighted fans for two decades. This book marks the 20th anniversary of the sleuthing cat. In this adventure, Harry Harristeen and her feline helpers investigates a series of car accidents that are attributed to driver error, but Harry thinks there’s something suspicious.

A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life by James Bowen

In another touching tale of a an abandoned cat who not only touches the lives of people around him, but this time saved on himself, Bob is found in Bowen’s apartment building. Bowen, who was living in dire circumstances, nursed the cat back to health and sent him on his way, thinking he wasn’t able to support a pet. Bob had other plans and worked his way back into Bowen’s life as Bowen describes in this charming memoir and it’s follow-up: The World According to Bob: the Further Adventures of One Man and His Streetwise Cat.

Arsenic and Old Books by Miranda James

This is another bout of cozy fun as part of her “Cat in the Stacks” mystery series which regales the reader with “tails” of librarian Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel. In this mystery, as Charlie goes through a donation of Civil War-era diaries for the archives only to be mired in history and politics as the the interest in the diaries grows.. and turns deadly.

Till next week, dear readers, hug a pet (be it yours or someone else’s), snuggle up next to them with a good book and even consider reading to them. If there’s something thing that goes together better than cats (or dogs) and books, it’s bonding through books.