Why Do Cats Love Bookstores?

April 13, 2016 9:31 AM

If a bookstore is so fortunate as to have a cat on the premises during operating hours, you can bet that feline is co-owner, manager, security, and the abiding conscience of the place. You go to a bookstore to buy a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates or the latest Kelly Link collection, but you’re really paying a tribute to the cat, whether you know it or not.
posted by veedubya (33 comments total)

A lot of times I realize that half of the pictures I've taken on my phone are not only of neighbourhood cats but the various bookstore cats I've met on my travels.
posted by Kitteh at 9:55 AM on April 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Cats and books do go together, just like libraries and lion statues. In the daytime cats are quiet and sleepy, and seem to share our contemplative nature. While we're thinking about the words on the page in front of us, they're snoozing away in front of the window. We live in harmony.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:58 AM on April 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

My local bookstore cats love clambering around on the tops of the shelves
posted by thelonius at 9:59 AM on April 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

it's weird watching a culture from outside, through just a few channels. cats, ta-nehisi coates and kelly link in a single paragraph. is that chance? is it "normal"? is it tailored for a narrow demographic? a large one?
posted by andrewcooke at 10:01 AM on April 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Many years ago, I bought a bookstore. It had had a cat. You could tell.
posted by theora55 at 10:03 AM on April 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I want to hang out with Tiny the Usurper.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:06 AM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cats and bookstores are made for each other. Bookstores and dogs, not so much, unless they're no longer puppies or with puppy curiosity and teeth.
posted by blucevalo at 10:11 AM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Several comments deleted. Let's start over and not have an immediate fight about allergies?
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:13 AM on April 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Metafilter: cats, ta-nehisi coates and kelly link in a single paragraph.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:17 AM on April 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

My local farm stand has two cats, and though they are technically not allowed to be sitting amongst the produce (they seem to prefer the oranges?), sometimes they are, and this presents absolutely no problem to me. It's a wonder to me that more retail establishments don't also have a cat.

I would literally be OK with a cat in every room in America
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:36 AM on April 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

A cat in every room and a buddha in every bucket.
posted by AugustWest at 10:58 AM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

A home without a cat -- and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat -- may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

Mark Twain, - Pudd'nhead Wilson
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:58 AM on April 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Parnassus in Nashville has dogs. Great store.

I love the cats that you don’t notice for a while, the ones that are lounging on a stack somewhere.
posted by bongo_x at 11:00 AM on April 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why Do Cats Love Bookstores?

It's not hard to connect the dots:
1) Cats carry toxoplasmosis parasites.
2) Toxoplasmosis is spread to humans through contact with/proximity to cat poop.
3) Toxoplasmosis causes humans to have irrationally warm feelings for cats.
4) Bookstores cause humans to feel the strong urge to poop.
5) ????????
6) Profit!
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:00 AM on April 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

shit freaks again, great
posted by thelonius at 12:01 PM on April 13, 2016

is that chance? is it "normal"? is it tailored for a narrow demographic? a large one?

No, don't understand, yes, no. Yes, this is a very carefully tailored performance of "taste" qua consumption-based identity; the target audience either already has an MFA or aspires to have one.
posted by RogerB at 12:03 PM on April 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Nevada was my last cat before my now departed Grace. She was a smart and most feisty cat. With a repertoire of bites to school one.
posted by y2karl at 12:59 PM on April 13, 2016

When I was a grad student at the University of Chicago, I was a regular visitor to the now sadly-defunct O'Gara and Wilson, famous home of Hanna Gray (the cat, not the university president). There was another resident Persian who was much friendlier--then again, being much friendlier than Hanna is what you'd call exceeding a low bar--but Hanna was definitely the star. After Mr. O'Gara retired, the new owner politely but firmly insisted that he take the cats home with him. When I asked about the cats' whereabouts, I was told that there had been...ahem...incidents involving certain antiquarian books that had been, shall we say, deleterious to their value.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:11 PM on April 13, 2016

And in cats making good, a London stray now joins the Foreign Office as Chief Mouser.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:12 PM on April 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tama, the train conductor cat.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:29 PM on April 13, 2016

Why Do Cats Love Bookstores?

Because people who buy books at local stores are smart, sexy and therefore love cats. Duh.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:19 PM on April 13, 2016

Is this where I get to boast about my two shop dogs? Mr. Ant and I own a motorcycle shop, and our two mutts come to work with us. Bookstores usually have cats; motorcycle shops usually have dogs.

And before you ask, yes, we have a sidecar but only the collie will ride in it.
posted by workerant at 2:37 PM on April 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I still have Fup's business card from Powell's Books.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 3:20 PM on April 13, 2016

workerant, cute dogs! Since first hearing the expression "living their best life," i have assumed it is about riding a motorcycle with your dog in the sidecar.
posted by The Gaffer at 3:27 PM on April 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

My local farm stand has two cats, and though they are technically not allowed to be sitting amongst the produce (they seem to prefer the oranges?), sometimes they are, and this presents absolutely no problem to me. It's a wonder to me that more retail establishments don't also have a cat.

A restaurant I used to work in had a resident cat, Menu. She was well trained to stay off surfaces and got locked in the office during service. The rest of the time she made sure we had zero and I mean zero rodent problems.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:57 PM on April 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Meet Ralph.
posted by pjern at 9:25 PM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Anyone else remember ISBN, the cat at Recycled Books in Campbell, CA?
posted by mdoar at 8:06 AM on April 14, 2016

I managed Downtown Books & News in Asheville NC 1990-1997. We acquired Retail in 1991 after he'd been abandoned. He strolled in as a kitten and took over until his death 12 years later. I have a photo of him at age 10 with a cute little tinfoil halo. I still miss him.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:10 AM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

There was a cat and a bookstore in Gatlinburg at one time. The last time I went to G-burg both cat and store were gone.
posted by Billiken at 8:19 AM on April 14, 2016

And a nod to Shopcat.com, no longer updated but still online, from where Nevada's emeritus page still lives. Some of you may find some old gone friends here.
posted by y2karl at 1:40 PM on April 14, 2016

Bodega cats.
posted by jvilter at 10:00 PM on April 15, 2016

Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis has cats, free-roaming chickens, iguanas, chinchillas, and a variety of small birds amongst their stacks.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 7:41 AM on April 17, 2016

And it smells like ?
posted by y2karl at 7:47 AM on April 17, 2016