Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, Illustrated Edition by T. S. Eliot Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, Illustrated Edition
Book Review: Purrfect for Cat Lovers
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a delightful book for cat lovers. Eliot's poetry is clever and witty, and Gorey's pen and ink drawings are wonderfully cute. I am a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats" which uses poems from this collection, and I found it particularly useful to find out what some of the musical's unintelligible lyrics actually are. (Sir Andrew's music is fun, but he really does a poor job setting the text.) The poems abound with Britishisms, archaic language, and references to British locales. A glossary or some annotations would have been nice.Book Review: Musical? What musical?
Summary: 5 Stars
I haven't seen it, don't plan to. I bought this book just as a collection of cat poetry by a well-know author, and was not disappointed. As a cat lover who is really not into poetry, I was looking to see how well the writer knows his subject, and he does. He has created a cast of characters worthy of any alley or basement. My personal favorite has to be Jennyanydots, who lounges all day, but spends her nights cooking for the mice and teaching them music and crocheting.
Reviewed by Kathie Freeman, author of Catwalk.
Book Review: Nice Little Book
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a rather nice hardcover; not too long or too large a book for your kids but also easily readable by adults. The typeface is good sized and well spaced and the b&w illustrations break up the poems nicely.
It also brings to mind "A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His Horse To Me" and should provide an interesting change of pace if your children also read Dr. Suess and Sesame Street.
This is also a good buy to understand more of the wordings from the 'Cats' musical without buying one of the show specific books or having a tatty online printout lying around.
Book Review: Not meant as a collection
Summary: 4 Stars
Unlike The Waste Land or Four Quartets, this book was written poem by poem to amuse friends and children of Eliot's. Put together, it is not something as marvelous as his other work, but it was not meant to be that. Instead, it is a fabulous piece of children's literature, with interesting rhyme and meter and tongue-tripping language. Definitely recommended, but not a good example of "typical" Eliot.Book Review: The exception that proves the rule?
Summary: 5 Stars
Even though one of my degrees is in English lit and even though I've been a poetry lover for half a century or more, I've never been a great lover of TS Eliot, with this one exception. To enjoy this book you don't need to be a poetry lover. It helps if you're a cat lover, in which case you're bound to love this even if you think you hate poetry or TS Eliot style poetry.This book's been beaten to death (in a positive way, mostly) by reviewers already, but I stumbled across it here and couldn't resist throwing in my own two cents.