Les Chats de Paris

There are some amazing shots of cats in this book, more so, even, than of dogs in Conrad's "Les Chiens de Paris". (I would assume it's more difficult to pose a cat than a dog.) However, there is also a bit of filler here, which wasn't true of the dog volume, possibly due to a smaller pool of eligible photos. Still, these cats are in rain gutters, atop pay phones, chasing mice along yardsticks, peeking over sheet music, performing in a street circus, tucked into a man's four-foot beard.The pictures are adorable and innocent, but watch out. Conrad's witty introduction contains some racy passages (about the she-cat's sexual prowess, and a neutered tom's suicide) that might make some think twice about giving it to (literate) children. (If "Chiens" is G, "Chats" is PG-13.) For the urban adult ailurophile, however, this is the perfect gift.