Close cookie details

This site uses cookies. Learn more about cookies.

OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.

If you do not wish to continue, please click here to exit this site.

Hide notification

  Main Nav
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
Cover of The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
Borrow Borrow
Look what The New Yorker dragged in! It’s the purr-fect gathering of talent celebrating our feline companions.
This bountiful collection, beautifully illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. Among the contributors are Margaret Atwood, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Roald Dahl, Wolcott Gibbs, Robert Graves, Emily Hahn, Ted Hughes, Jamaica Kincaid, Steven Millhauser, Haruki Murakami, Amy Ozols, Robert Pinsky, Jean Rhys, James Thurber, John Updike, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and E. B. White. Including a Foreword by Anthony Lane, this gorgeous keepsake will be a treasured gift for all cat lovers.
Praise for The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
“The Book of Cats comes a year after The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs—a publishing slight that, though it stings, I’ll forgive, as the latest anthology was worth the wait. . . . Two standout articles feature real-life obsessives of ages past who reveal today’s Caturnet devotees—with their GIFs and Tumblrs and hastily aggregated listicles—for what they truly are: amateurs. . . . Eat your heart out, Cute Overload.”The New York Times Book Review
“A beautiful hardcover.”—Jenny McCarthy, People
“This irresistible anthology of articles, poems, essays, fiction, cartoons, and covers pulled from the New Yorker is a veritable treasure trove for cat lovers. Just dive right in; with stories from the likes of John Updike, Maeve Brennan, Roald Dalhl, and Haruki Murakami interwoven with hilariously wry cartoons, one can’t help but be enthralled. A must-have.”Modern Cat
“A shiny, well-fed tome . . . The anthology embodies the cat’s defining characteristic: its cluster of opposites, rolled together into a giant hairball of cultural attitudes—something, perhaps, at once uncomfortably and assuringly reflective of our own chronically conflicted selves.”Brain Pickings
“This gorgeous book has earned a permanent spot on my coffee table. It is an absolute joy to read and browse through, and I know it will bring me hours and hours of pleasure for years to come. And it makes a purr-fect gift for the special cat lovers in your life.”The Conscious Cat
“[A] sumptuous volume.”The Dallas Morning News
Look what The New Yorker dragged in! It’s the purr-fect gathering of talent celebrating our feline companions.
This bountiful collection, beautifully illustrated in full color, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. Among the contributors are Margaret Atwood, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Roald Dahl, Wolcott Gibbs, Robert Graves, Emily Hahn, Ted Hughes, Jamaica Kincaid, Steven Millhauser, Haruki Murakami, Amy Ozols, Robert Pinsky, Jean Rhys, James Thurber, John Updike, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and E. B. White. Including a Foreword by Anthony Lane, this gorgeous keepsake will be a treasured gift for all cat lovers.
Praise for The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
“The Book of Cats comes a year after The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs—a publishing slight that, though it stings, I’ll forgive, as the latest anthology was worth the wait. . . . Two standout articles feature real-life obsessives of ages past who reveal today’s Caturnet devotees—with their GIFs and Tumblrs and hastily aggregated listicles—for what they truly are: amateurs. . . . Eat your heart out, Cute Overload.”The New York Times Book Review
“A beautiful hardcover.”—Jenny McCarthy, People
“This irresistible anthology of articles, poems, essays, fiction, cartoons, and covers pulled from the New Yorker is a veritable treasure trove for cat lovers. Just dive right in; with stories from the likes of John Updike, Maeve Brennan, Roald Dalhl, and Haruki Murakami interwoven with hilariously wry cartoons, one can’t help but be enthralled. A must-have.”Modern Cat
“A shiny, well-fed tome . . . The anthology embodies the cat’s defining characteristic: its cluster of opposites, rolled together into a giant hairball of cultural attitudes—something, perhaps, at once uncomfortably and assuringly reflective of our own chronically conflicted selves.”Brain Pickings
“This gorgeous book has earned a permanent spot on my coffee table. It is an absolute joy to read and browse through, and I know it will bring me hours and hours of pleasure for years to come. And it makes a purr-fect gift for the special cat lovers in your life.”The Conscious Cat
“[A] sumptuous volume.”The Dallas Morning News
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
  • Lexile:
  • Interest Level:
  • Text Difficulty:


Excerpts-
  • Chapter 1 Chapter 1

    DEATH OF A FAVORITE

    Fiction

    J. F. POWERS

    I had spent most of the afternoon mousing—a matter of sport with me and certainly not of diet—in the sunburnt fields that begin at our back door and continue hundreds of miles into the Dakotas. I gradually gave up the idea of hunting, the grasshoppers convincing me that there was no percentage in stealth. Even to doze was difficult, under such conditions, but I must have managed it. At least I was late coming to dinner, and so my introduction to the two missionaries took place at table. They were surprised, as most visitors are, to see me take the chair at Father Malt’s right.

    Father Malt, breaking off the conversation (if it could be called that), was his usual dear old self. “Fathers,” he said, “meet Fritz.”

    I gave the newcomers the first good look that invariably tells me whether or not a person cares for cats. The mean old buck in charge of the team did not like me, I could see, and would bear watching. The other one obviously did like me, but he did not appear to be long enough from the seminary to matter. I felt that I had broken something less than even here.

    “My assistant,” said Father Malt, meaning me, and thus unconsciously dealing out our fat friend at the other end of the table. Poor Burner! There was a time when, thinking of him, as I did now, as the enemy, I could have convinced myself I meant something else. But he is the enemy, and I was right from the beginning, when it could only have been instinct that told me how much he hated me even while trying (in his fashion!) to be friendly. (I believe his prejudice to be acquired rather than congenital, and very likely, at this stage, confined

    to me, not to cats as a class—there is that in his favor. I intend to be fair about this if it kills me.)

    My observations of humanity incline me to believe that one of us—Burner or I—must ultimately prevail over the other. For myself, I should not fear if this were a battle to be won on the solid ground of Father Malt’s affections. But the old man grows older, the grave beckons to him ahead, and with Burner pushing him from behind, how long can he last? Which is to say: How long can I last? Unfortunately, it is naked power that counts most in any rectory, and as things stand now, I am safe only so long as Father Malt retains it here. Could I—this impossible thought is often with me now—could I effect a reconciliation and alliance with Father Burner? Impossible! Yes, doubtless. But the question better asked is: How impossible? (Lord knows I would not inflict this line of reasoning upon myself if I did not hold with the rumors that Father Burner will be the one to succeed to the pastorate.) For I do like it here. It is not at all in my nature to forgive and forget, certainly not as regards Father Burner, but it is in my nature to come to terms (much as nations do) when necessary, and in this solution there need not be a drop of good will. No dog can make that statement, or take the consequences, which I understand are most serious, in the world to come. Shifts and ententes. There is something fatal about the vocation of favorite, but it is the only one that suits me, and, all things considered—to dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed—the rewards are adequate.

    “We go through Chicago all the time,” said the boss missionary, who seemed to be returning to a point he had reached when I entered. I knew Father Malt would be off that evening for a convention in Chicago. The missionaries, who would fill in for him and conduct a forty hours’ devotion...
About the Author-
  • The New Yorker began publishing in 1925.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    March 10, 2014
    Here comes the effervescent counterpart to 2012's Big New Yorker Book of Dogs, an anthology of short fiction, articles, photographs, and of course, cat cartoons—an unassailable gift for the cat-lover in your life. The non-fiction spans from the fanciful—a lovely little piece from the ‘80s about a cat therapist operating in Manhattan—to the bizarre—Ariel Levy's excellent 2013 piece about exotic cat fanciers—people who will pay "as much as thirty thousand dollars for the privilege of owning a hybrid that looks like it could prowl the wilderness"—like, for example, the "Savannah cat, a cross between a domestic and a serval, an African native that preys on gazelles and springbok." The book spans the entire New Yorker history, and it's interesting to see how profiles have evolved, from a whimsical piece about a chorus girl turned cat-catcher from 1938 to Susan Orlean's masterful 2002 profile "The Lady and the Tigers," about a woman who owned up to two dozen tigers in Jackson Township, New Jersey. Readers will also enjoy a short story from Haruki Murakami, "Town of Cats" as well as fiction from John Updike, and Jean Rhys. Here is the rare coffee table book that is also a pleasure to read.

  • Kirkus

    September 1, 2013
    A worthy follow-up to last year's Big New Yorker Book of Dogs. Covers, cartoons, authors of pieces both longer and shorter, reflect current views of the feline subject in all its glory, and sometimes disgrace, as well as those of bygone days. Poets like Ted Hughes and Robert Graves sit alongside contributions from the magazine's former regular columnists--e.g., James Thurber's 1952 post-party tale "The Case of Dimity Ann" and E.B White's informative "How To Make a Cat Trap" (1930). White offers both a complicated assembly job and a simpler, more lethal one for those hardy enough to try. In "The Cats" (2003), John Updike writes about inheriting eight acres and countless cats. Included in this generous collection are big cats, lost cats, Army cats, bookstore and even wine-shop cats, cat therapists, a cat man, catsitters and cat savers. Cartoons and covers reflect more of these cross or interspecies types of rapport and humor. In 1954, a Republican owner of a Manx cat reported his pet's reaction to the mention of the name "Harry Truman" and how he got her down from the living room mantel by saying "Eisenhower." In one cartoon, a dinner-party host arrives with a cat perched atop a tray and asks his guests, "Cat, anyone?"; another cartoon wonders, "Who's Really Running the City." This theme is also echoed in some of the selections included among the 24 cover reproductions, like the Sleeping Beauty from Nov. 24, 1997, or the Cat vs. Dog game of chess from June 24, 1974. Other contributors include Roald Dahl, Jamaica Kincaid, Haruki Murakami, Susan Orlean, Robert Pinsky, Ariel Levy, T.C. Boyle and Steven Millhauser. The quality, humor and variety make for another successful New Yorker collection.

    COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  • Library Journal

    November 1, 2013

    Dogs had their day in The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs, and now cats rule in this engaging feline anthology. This fun collection of short stories, articles, humor, poems, and charming color covers from the magazine's archives devotes sections to fat cats, alley cats, cat fanciers, and curious cats. Writers such as John Updike, Ted Hughes, James Thurber, Elizabeth Bishop, Margaret Atwood, and Roald Dahl recall their own pets, lost cats, experiences rescuing cats, old and young women and their cats, and the sheer joy of observing the animals just being themselves. Peter Matthiessen focuses on endangered large cats in "Tiger in the Snow," and Susan Orlean describes one woman's tiger sanctuary in "The Lady and the Tigers." Cartoonists such as William Steig, Sam Gross, and others provide laugh-out-loud scenarios that capture important things in life: eating, sleeping, adventure, litter boxes, and scratching the furniture. VERDICT Patrons will thoroughly enjoy browsing these pages with their furry friends nearby in this high-quality, attractive work.--Eva Lautemann, formerly with Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston

    Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Kirkus Reviews

    "The Book of Cats comes a year after The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs--a publishing slight that, though it stings, I'll forgive, as the latest anthology was worth the wait. . . . Two standout articles feature real-life obsessives of ages past who reveal today's Caturnet devotees--with their GIFs and Tumblrs and hastily aggregated listicles--for what they truly are: amateurs. . . . Eat your heart out, Cute Overload."--The New York Times Book Review "A beautiful hardcover."--Jenny McCarthy, People "This irresistible anthology of articles, poems, essays, fiction, cartoons, and covers pulled from the New Yorker is a veritable treasure trove for cat lovers. Just dive right in; with stories from the likes of John Updike, Maeve Brennan, Roald Dalhl, and Haruki Murakami interwoven with hilariously wry cartoons, one can't help but be enthralled. A must-have."--Modern Cat "A shiny, well-fed tome . . . The anthology embodies the cat's defining characteristic: its cluster of opposites, rolled together into a giant hairball of cultural attitudes--something, perhaps, at once uncomfortably and assuringly reflective of our own chronically conflicted selves."--Brain Pickings "This gorgeous book has earned a permanent spot on my coffee table. It is an absolute joy to read and browse through, and I know it will bring me hours and hours of pleasure for years to come. And it makes a purr-fect gift for the special cat lovers in your life."--The Conscious Cat "[A] sumptuous volume."--The Dallas Morning News "One need not own cats (or do cats own their owners?) or even be a pet lover to savor this feline-focused offering."--The Sacramento Bee "[A] fun collection of short stories, articles, humor, poems, and charming color covers from the magazine's archives . . . [a] high-quality, attractive work."--Library Journal "Covers, cartoons, authors of pieces both longer and shorter, reflect current views of the feline subject in all its glory. . . . The quality, humor and variety make for another successful New Yorker collection."

  • Publishers Weekly "An eminently giftable anthology."
Title Information+
  • Publisher
    Random House Publishing Group
  • OverDrive Read
    Release date:
  • EPUB eBook
    Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
  • Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.

Status bar:

You've reached your checkout limit.

Visit your Checkouts page to manage your titles.

Close

You already have this title checked out.

Want to go to your Checkouts?

Close

Recommendation Limit Reached.

You've reached the maximum number of titles you can recommend at this time. You can recommend up to 0 titles every 0 day(s).

Close

Sign in to recommend this title.

Recommend your library consider adding this title to the Digital Collection.

Close

Enhanced Details

Close
Close

Limited availability

Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.

is available for days.

Once playback starts, you have hours to view the title.

Close

Permissions

Close

The OverDrive Read format of this eBook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.

Close

Holds

Total holds:


Close

Restricted

Some format options have been disabled. You may see additional download options outside of this network.

Close

MP3 audiobooks are only supported on macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) through 10.14 (Mojave). Learn more about MP3 audiobook support on Macs.

Close

Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.

Close

Device Compatibility Notice

The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.

Close

Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen

Close

You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.

To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.

Close

Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.

There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.

Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.

Close

You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.

Close

This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.

Close

An unexpected error has occurred.

If this problem persists, please contact support.

Close

Close

NOTE: Barnes and Noble® may change this list of devices at any time.

Close
Buy it now
and help our library WIN!
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
The New Yorker Magazine
Choose a retail partner below to buy this title for yourself.
A portion of this purchase goes to support your library.
Close
Close

There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.

Close
Barnes & Noble Sign In |   Sign In

You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.

If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.

Accept to ContinueCancel