I want this book ~ Signed, Jackie

My Book of Cats and Kittens looks like fun.  I want it.  Now.  Bonnie should get it for me.  Now.  It's not fair that I can't buy it myself because she won't let me use that plastic card in her pocket.  Not fair!  Anyway, what'cha think of this?

Okay, that isn't really me, but that's how I smile when I get to blog on Caturdays.

Signed,

          Jackie

P.S.  Today is CATURDAY, the day after Friday.

Beginning ~ in September 2026

Hollow Bones ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2026, literary fiction, 464 pages

When Jodi Picoult came to St. Louis a few years ago, my friend Donna Carey and I went to hear her speak and met her afterwards.  This photo shows Jodi with us on September 25, 2019.  I now have Jodi's latest book from the library and am reading it.  I was surprised that the first lines of this book are preceeded by the date "September 2026."  That's the month the book was first published, which ended two days ago.  Now I am even more excited about reading this latest book by my favorite author.

September 2026

An unexpected wind picks up from the north and the wall of fire becomes a living thing, a dragon roaring toward the first responders who try to tame it.  I'm frozen in place, watching this hellscape.  These thirty-mile-per-hour gusts have seemingly arrived out of, well, thin air.

Optimistic October

Being optimistic seems like something I need to be thinking about these days, so I've decided to post this latest calendar from Action for Happiness for at least a month.  Putting it online reminds me, while also sharing it with anybody in the world who needs these words and ideas.  Enlarge the whole calendar and its words by clicking on the calendar.

Today, I'm thinking about the generations

Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America's Future ~ by Jean M. Twenge, 2023, anthropology, 560 pages

A groundbreaking look at the five generations that make up today’s population, from the bestselling author of Generation Me and iGen. Dr. Jean Twenge has analyzed millions of data points to glean the attitudes, characteristics, and life circumstances that define each generation, resulting in a fascinating look at how they connect, conflict, and compete with each other.

Upending the conventional theory that generational differences are caused by major events, Dr. Jean Twenge analyzes data on 39 million people from robust national surveys — some going back nearly a century — to show that changes in technology are the underlying driver of each generation’s unique makeup.  In this revelatory work, Twenge outlines key shifts in attitudes and lifestyle choices that define each generation regarding gender, income, politics, race, sexuality, marriage, mental health, and more.

Generations “gets you thinking about how appreciating generational differences can, ironically, bring us together,” said Angela Duckworth, a New York Times bestselling author.  It may also change the way you view your parents, peers, coworkers, children, and grandchildren.

Defining generations (from what I could find online): 

Greatest Generation were born 1901–1927.

Silent Generation were born 1928–1945.

Baby Boomers were born 1946–1964.

Generation X were born 1965–1980.

Generation Y were born 1981–1996.

Generation Z were born 1997–2010.

Generation Alpha were born 2010-2024.

Yesterday, a friend sat down beside me in the Crown Center library to tell me about this book, saying I should read it.  When I got home, I looked it up online and promptly put it on reserve at my library.  I am part of the Silent Generation, though I'm not so silent, am I?  All three of my children are Boomers.  Which generation are you?

Cold Mountain ~ by Charles Frazier

Cold Mountain ~ by Charles Frazier, 1997, historical fiction (North Carolina), 449 pages

Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier named Inman decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves.  His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign.  At the same time, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away.  Inman is not the man he used to be, as wounded in battle he slowly makes his way home to North Carolina.  His sweetheart, Ada, is no longer a flighty belle but a hard-working farm woman.  Will love be the same?

It has been decades since I read this excellent book, so I've taken it off my shelf to read again.  It will also take me "home" to the mountains where I lived before moving to St. Louis.  I'm from Tennessee, which borders North Carolina. 

A novel by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York

A Most Intriguing Lady ~ by Sarah Ferguson with Marguerite Kaye, 2023, historical fiction (Scotland), 368 pages, 9/10

This is an historical saga is about a Duke’s daughter — the perfect Victorian lady — who secretly moonlights as an amateur sleuth for high society’s inner circle.  Victorian London was notorious for its pickpockets.  But in the country houses of the elite, gentleman burglars, art thieves and con men preyed on the rich and titled.  Wealthy victims — with their pride and reputation at stake — wouldn't ever go to the police.  What they needed was a society insider, one of their own, a person of discretion and finely tuned powers of observation, who is adept at navigating intrigue.

That person was Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott, the youngest child of Queen Victoria’s close friends, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch.  Bookish, fiercely intelligent, and a keen observer, Mary has deliberately cultivated a mousey persona that allows her to remain overlooked and significantly under-estimated by all.  It’s the perfect cover for a sleuth, a role she stumbles into when trying to assist a close friend during a house party hosted by her parents at their stately Scottish home, Drumlanrig Castle.

It is at this party where Lady Mary also meets Colonel Walter Trefusis, a distinguished and extremely handsome war veteran.  Tortured by memories of combat, Walter, like Mary, lives a double life, with a desk job in Whitehall providing a front for his role in the British Intelligence Service.  The two form an unlikely alliance to solve a series of audacious crimes — and indulge in a highly charged on-off romance.  So this novel documents one remarkable woman’s ability to be both the perfect lady and a perfectly talented detective.

Week in Review

• On Monday, HERE, I mused about taking one's own advice.
• I wrote about two unrelated things on TWOsday, HERE.
• My Wednesday Word, HERE, was "pandiculation."  Have you ever used that big word?  I'd never even heard the word until this week.
• My Thursday Thoughts, HERE, were about a very young survivor of Auschwitz.
• My Book Beginnings on Friday, HERE, were from the memoir of a man going blind.
• My cat Jackie was perturbed that I posted on "her" Caturday, so she added her two cents worth about the situation, HERE.

Hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

Cat book for Caturday

Catland: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania ~ by Kathryn Hughes, 2024, history of cats, 432 pages

In 1900, America and England were in the grip of a cat craze.  An animal that had for centuries been seen as a household servant or urban nuisance had now become an object of pride and deep affection.  From presidential and royal families who imported exotic breeds to working-class men competing for cash prizes for the fattest tabby, people became enthralled to the once-humble cat.  Multiple industries sprang up to feed this new obsession, selling everything from veterinary services to leather bootees via dedicated cat magazines.  Cats were being traded for increasingly large sums of money, bolstered by elaborate pedigrees that claimed noble ancestry and promised aesthetic distinction.

In Catland, Kathryn Hughes chronicles the cat craze of the early twentieth century through the life and career of Louis Wain.  Wain's anthropomorphic drawings of cats in top hats falling in love, sipping champagne, golfing, driving cars, and piloting planes are some of the most instantly recognizable images from the era.  His round-faced fluffy characters established the prototype for the modern cat, which cat "fanciers" were busily trying to achieve using their new-found knowledge of the latest scientific breeding techniques.

Despite being a household name, Wain endured multiple bankruptcies and mental breakdowns, spending his last fifteen years in an asylum, drawing abstract and multicolored felines.

But it was his ubiquitous anthropomorphic cats that helped usher the formerly reviled creatures into homes across Europe.

Beautifully illustrated with over 130 drawings and based on new archival findings about Wain's life, the wider cat fancy, and the media frenzy it created, Catland chronicles the fascinating history of how the modern cat emerged.

*Jackie speaking!  (Even if I have to do it in a footnote of sorts.)

Somebody put this cat book in the box beside our door.  It's full of strange cat drawings, so Bonnie wrote about it for Caturday.

Hey, Bonnie!  Did you forget this day is supposed to be MY day?  I'll settle for this footnote today, but please let me do next CATurday's post.  (And I want to read the Catland book, too.)