Cats and bookstores are a hallowed tradition (among used bookstores and in our memory, anyway), and like overboard Halloween decorating and plastic flamingo lawn ornaments, they just seem to have their own sense of, well, internal sense, despite defying logical explanation.

Like most traditions lost in the midst of time, there’s obviously a historical precedent, but it’s much harder to pinpoint what has made them endure in people’s imaginations ....................

Monks who worked on manuscripts often kept cats. The same is true of clerics in Islam who dealt with documents before books were common. It is said that the famed Library of Alexandria, an Ancient Wonder of the World had a hundred cats - and if you think back to the Egyptians, who treated cats like royalty ................. . WELL!

I think it's pretty obvious that the literary cat phenomenon has been around even prior to bookstores.

“Cats were standard in European archives—and many still have them—mainly to deal with mice and rats,” said Nancy Marrelli, Archivist Emerita at Concordia University in Canada. “The idea is that the negative effects of having a cat in an archives are less serious than the side effects of having mice and rats.” (quote source - The Link Newspaper - http://thelinknewspaper.com/article/1350).

While that seems a very common sense explanation related to cats and books, it just doesn't seem to tell the whole story ............

How many times have cat owners found their feline companions sprawled across a newspaper or open magazine?

How many times has your feline friend been desperate to reach your lap while you're reading, or may be found perched on your chair back, reading over your shoulder?

No I think the answer is more complex than that - and we think we should explore that little tradition a little more in future, but for the moment lets acknowledge they fit together like ................. CATS and BOOKSHOPS!

Looking out briefly on the Internet, about the subject, cats abound in literary places everywhere in the world - a very interesting little graphic and table on the Iron Frog Productions site ( http://www.ironfrog.com/catsmap.html ) lists a map of 809 known documented library cats, both living and overdrawn in the Nine Lives account - Abebooks has a catalog of bookstore cats sent in by their so called "bosses" in the shop  ( http://www.abebooks.com/books/bookseller-bookshop-bookstore/cats.shtml ) - Now really, has anyone EVER tried to be boss to a cat?  - If you ever succeed let me know ..............

But even on-line bookstores need a cat ............... after all a group of kittens is know as a "Kindle", isn't it? ................ and what is a computer without a mouse! And there's even advantages to an on-line bookstore cat ................ after all, how allergic can one be?

So a big introduction to our book shop related, resident on-line mouser ..............

! PHOEBE !

She is one of four in our little shop, who you may find sleeping on a on-line shelf or behind a a stack, near you in future .................