Crazy About Cats
Owen Davey
Flying Eye Books
Owen Davey can make any subject a delight; even cats to this ailurophobic reviewer – actually though my phobia only applies to the domestic or the feral kind.
Following on from his magnificent Mad About Monkeys and superb Smart About Sharks, Davey delivers a third ace.
His fifteen spreads are again, cleverly named and playfully subtitled; so after the introductory, ‘What Are Cats?’ with its ‘Nom Nom’ consideration of diet, and ‘Hard Cat to Follow’ lines concerning locations, readers are asked to “Paws for Thought’ and focus for a while on felid evolution.

We then move on to food and the catching thereof, which looks at adaptations or what the author terms ‘super powers’ using as an example, the Asiatic golden cat.
Wildcat coat patterns and camouflage is the next topic; (the latter crops up again in ‘Making a Meal of Things’) and here Davey’s central band of patterned beasts is particularly striking in its effect.

Trees and other plants play an important role for some cat creatures such as the nocturnal Margays that lurk among their foliage, using their ‘super-powered eyes’ when hunting …

and leaping through the treetops and sprinting head first down tree trunks.
Territory, shape and size, mythology and weird features or characteristics are some of the other topics explored and the final index pages look at the lineage of eight cat families.
Another class act from Owen Davey and Flying Eye Books; awesome art, amazing design, and wonderful word wizardry; but then one has come to expect nothing less.

I’ve signed the charter