#Shirley Rousseau Murphy

[detroitlib]

From our stacks: Dust jacket detail from Cat Cross Their Graves. A Joe Grey Mystery. Shirley Rousseau Murphy. New York: Harper Collins, 2005. Jacket illustration by Beppe Giacobbe.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[yarrowleef]

I’m trying to start a collection of every xenofiction book from a cats POV that I can find!! this is my criteria list:

older middle-grade and up fiction stories (maybe some exceptions for children's books if I really like them)

Mostly or only cat POV, not stories about people with cat sidekicks

about actual cats, not a human that shapeshifts into a cat, nor cat-like two-legged humanoids

Focusing on domestic cats and maybe small wild cats, not big cats 

It doesn’t have to be a traditionally published book, but it does have to be something completed that I can buy a copy of

Graphic novels count!

These are the ones I know so far, please let me know if you have any more that I can add! (not listing every book’s sequels, series are presumed to be lumped together)

(also note: I have not read most of these books yet, so I can’t say what kind of graphic/sensitive content they may or may not have. I'm just trying to make as complete a list as I can for personal reference)

Warrior Cats (obviously, this one is a free space)

Varjak Paw -- S.F Said

Tailchaser’s Song -- Tad Williams

The Wild Road -- Gabriel King

Catwings -- Ursula K. Le Guin

Stray -- A.N Wilson

The Book of Night with Moon -- Diane Duane

The Wildings -- Nilanjana Roy

The Tygrine Cat -- Inbali Iserles

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents -- Terry Pratchett

 The Familiars -- Adam Jay Epstein

In the Long Dark -- Brian Carter

Felidae -- Akif Pirinçci. Unfortunately! but I don’t want to talk about him and no one should buy his work. just adding so people know i’m aware of this book already

The Cats of Roxville Station -- Jean Craighead George

The Traveling Cat Chronicles -- Hiro Arikawa

Blitzcat -- Robert Westall

Cat House -- Michael Peak

Cats in the City of Plague -- A.L Marlow

Guardian Cats and the Lost Books of Alexandria -- Rahma Krambo

Cat on the Edge -- Shirley Rousseau Murphy

I Am a Cat -- Natsume Sōseki

The Alchemist’s Cat -- Robin Jarvis

The Stink Files -- Jennifer L. Holm & Jonathan Hamel

I, Scheherazade: Memoirs of a Siamese Cat -- Douglass Parkhirst

The Mouse Butcher -- Dick King-Smith

Heroes Rising: Book One of Catmage: Genesis -- Meryl Yourish

[fictionadventurer]

2, 4, 6, 12, 19

2. First fairy tale retelling you ever read

I already mentioned Ella Enchanted was my first. The more difficult question to answer is which one was second, because I didn't come back to fairy tale retellings until many years later. It's possible it was The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, though this was before I read the fairy tale, so, hilariously, I quit halfway through because I thought the talking dead horse head was so dumb that I couldn't read further. (I eventually did come back to it after reading the original, and I loved it).

4. Fairy tale retelling you've read with the earliest publishing date

If we count The Blue Castle as a "Bluebeard" or "Cinderella" retelling, it takes the earliest slot with the publishing date of 1926.

If that doesn't count, the earliest is the "Cinderella" retelling Silver Woven in My Hair by Shirley Rousseau Murphy from 1977.

(I did once read a few pages of a Cinderella retelling by Louisa May Alcott, but I found it too boring to continue.)

6. Fairy tale you've read the most retellings of

Already answered. It's "Cinderella". By a lot. Second place might go to "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" because there was a point where I made a point of hunting down and reading every retelling of it I could find.

12. Fairy tale retelling you wish more people would read

I've gotten a few people to read this one, but I'll always shill for Kate Stradling's Brine and Bone as a "Little Mermaid" retelling that follows the original plot while making it clear that the ending is happy.

19. A fairy tale you'd like to retell

Right now, I yearn to retell "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" in a way that captures what I've always wanted in a retelling, but I can't find an angle that gives me a way in to the story.

[the25centpaperback]

The Wolf Bell by Shirley Rousseau Murphy, cover by Michael Mariano (1979)

[invertedeidolon]

The Longest Library #2: Cat Raise The Dead by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (AKA cat balls)

This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.

Rundown: Two sentient, talking cats solving a mystery involving disappearing old folks and a cat burglar. I give it a 2/5 because it's like a slightly undercooked brownie, you think you like it but by the third bite it's falling apart and isn't holding together very well and you kind of want it to reach the end and it doesn't feel great anymore. You have to put it down and pick out the nice bits and kind of ignore the other bits and just drink a tall glass of milk afterwards.

So what I mean by that, is that the pacing, both in the narrative sense and the pace at which clues are revealed or become more concrete, is too slow. It felt like I was being shown a bunch of unrelated stuff, and the one or two things I did connect painted a much more interesting picture for myself than it turned out to be. I felt shorted. After the descriptions of the frighteningly lifelike dolls and the missing old people I was ready for some real serial killer shit. There was too much space between finding clues and the climax (where everything came together). It felt like I was handed 5 out of 500 puzzle pieces, and then shown the rest of it at the last minute. None of those five fit together in any way. The author was a little too guarded about the conclusion.

Now, not to diss the big mystery itself. It's effective and devilishly practical, and literally would have been an air tight scheme if not for those meddling cats.

The secondary sub-mystery feels unnecessary. It could have stood alone as it's own thing, or have been concluded in the first half. It feels very haphazardly tied to the main mystery.

There's quite a few run on sentences that could have done with some pruning. The imagery is vibrant, and would be great if the book was only about the cats. But it's not. The narrative keeps weaving in and out of cat-centric things like hunting in the moonlight and a gnarly rat fight, and back to the mystery again. It feels disjointed, and could do with some tightening.

Also the author keeps "showing and not telling" me that the main cat is clearly not neutered. God please. Effective imagery. But holy fuck stop showing me this cat's little furry balls.

Now for some lines I wanted to comment on.

"Last week, coming out of the Felther house up on Ridgeview, with her inner coat pockets loaded with a lovely set of Rose of Erin sterling and a fine array of serving pieces, when she saw the gray tom watching from atop a black station wagon and she faced him and swore at him, his eyes had flared with rage. Sentient rage. The kind of violent anger you see only in human eyes."

"He turned away, trotted away purposefully up the side street as if she didn't exist, moved off toward the front of the house, prancing insolently up the center of the sidewalk under the streetlight, his stub tail wiggling back and forth, his tomcat balls making him walk slightly straddle-legged."

"The hunting would be fine, the rabbits giddy and silly in the racing light. She felt giddy herself, felt suddenly moon silly. Felt like rolling and playing."

ZOOMIES

"Harper looked the car over, took out a pack of cigarettes, then changed his mind and put them back in his pocket. As if he didn't want to smoke up the pristine beauty. [...] Again he took a cigarette, slipping it from the pack in his pocket in an automatic reflex. He started to tamp it on the door of the Bentley, then put it back again."

The author is really good at small details like this, little character details and mannerisms that get lost in the rest of the incredibly dense descriptions and things-that-aren't-moving-the-plot-faster.

"She was dressed in jeans and one of those T-shirts that made a statement, a shirt she had obviously selected as appropriate for the occasion. Across her chest four cats approached the viewer, and on the back of the shirt, which he'd seen as she came around the car to get in, was a rear view of the same four cats walking away, as if they were stepping invisibly through the wearer's chest, thier tails high, and, of course, all their fascinating equipment in plain sight."

This is Dillon. She's like, 15. Please choose a different shirt Dillon. Author, please stop talking about how fascinating cat balls are for like one second, oh my god.

"He and Dr.Firreti were waiting to see if the pills would snap Barney out of it. It was midafternoon now, and he wondered if Clyde was at home. Worrying, he said a little cat prayer for Barney."

I want a church cat, to go to church, and reeeead his biiiiblee~

"...her spike heels sharp enough to puncture a cat's throat. It was Dulcie who glanced away. This was the woman who could afford a three hundred thousand dollar Bentley Azure but who presumably spent her days among bedpans counting soiled sheets and inspecting medication charts. A woman who had to be driven totally by love for humanity; why else would she do this? This woman who, Clyde had told him, supervised every detail of the retirement villa like an army general. As she disappeared into an office, Joe shivered, and he, too, looked away."

ALERT, EVIL VILLAIN SPOTTED, SHE IS OBVIOUSLY UP TO NO GOOD (tm)

"If Clyde ordered you not to go near Casa Capri, you'd be up there in the shake of a whisker." [...] "Joe wanted to say, 'You thought visiting the old folks would be all kippers and cream,' wanted to say, 'Casa Capri didn't turn out like you expected.' But she glared as him so crossly he shut his mouth."

There's a lot of colorful writing meant to invoke the sharpness and whimsicality surrounding life as a cat, but it suffers from (what I feel are) tone problems. 'kippers and cream' and 'a shake of your tail' right alongside visceral descriptions of the killing blow on a wild rabbit, slowly devouring/pulling it apart. It would be immersive if not for the cat puns and colloquialisms that sound like they belong on a plaque someplace in your Nan's house.

"Tramping heavy-pawed among the delicate bottles, he posed before the mirror, twitching a whisker, giving her a toothy grin. Panning and turning, he glanced over his shoulder, studying his stub tail and his tomcat equipment. She hadn't known he was such a ham."

ANYWAY, 2 down, 295 to go.

[thekimdelacreme]

Read Cat Chase the Moon.

[roseunspindle]

The Catswold Portal

[sandythereadingcafe]

REVIEW:

CAT CHASE THE MOON (Joe Grey Mystery) by Shirley Rousseau Murphy at The Reading Cafe:

‘a fun series, exciting mysteries, and fantastic characters’

http://www.thereadingcafe.com/cat-chase-the-moon-by-shirley-rousseau-murphy/

[detroitlib]

From our stacks: Cover detail from Cat Coming Home. A Joe Grey Mystery. Shirley Rousseau Murphy. New York: William Morrow, 2010. Cat illustration by Beppe Giacobbe.

[allcatsconstitutethesamefamily]

From The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana by Shirley Rousseau Murphy, 2014.

They've had many lives and many ages: cats I've met in my time travels.

Wondering about this post?  Wait for the dissertation (TBA). For now:  Weblog ◆ Books ◆ Videos ◆ Music ◆ Etsy

[fictionadventurer]

For the book ask: Fairytale, or, alternately, Green

Since the "Woods" stack included a good portion of my green books, I'll show you the stack of all my fairy tale collections and retellings.

The Shadow of the Bear, Black as Night (Bethlehem Books edition), Black as Night (Chesterton Press edition), Waking Rose, Waking Rose (10th anniversary edition), The Midnight Dancers, Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyberthieves, and Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman

Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke

Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales

The Everyman's Library editions of English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Entwined by Heather Dixon

Silver Woven in My Hair by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley

Ella Enchanted and Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

[thesconesyard]

Book dump!!!

One of the great parts of being an adult is that I can get in my car and go to my favorite used bookstores whenever I want. (SUPPORT YOUR LOCALS!!)

Today my partner is out of state for work, my little is with grandparents and I have had a glorious day of nothing. I should have done some chores (and I probably still will) but I took my ass to my two faves and loaded up!

Starting from the bottom, I grabbed a Leslie Patricelli for the little. We love her books. Her illustrations are fun and the stories just right for someone growing (little is 3.5.)

Then we have a handful of the Time Warp Trio by Jon Scieszka. Those are kinda for little when bigger, but also mostly for me because they’re awesome and I’ve read all of the series the library has. (You may know Scieszka from The Stinky Cheeseman.)

Next is Cat After Dark by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. This is a mystery series my mom got me hooked on. It’s about Joe Grey, a talking cat who secretly solves mysteries and calls in anonymous tips to the local police force. It’s good I promise.

A couple of Agatha Christies because who doesn’t like a good, well written murder. Mystery! A good, well written mystery.

Lonesome Dove I started to read on archive.org, but kept forgetting my place when I couldn’t stay logged in. Yes, I’m secretly a cowboy at heart. Yes, I’m going to watch the movies when I finish. Yes, that means I will eventually watch Karl play a cowboy 🤠

Keith Laumer. This is an odd one. Back at university, a classmates gave me a random stack of sci-fi to read. It took me years to remember the author’s name. So I decided why not give him a try. If I don’t like it I’ll drop it in Mom’s bag to sell back and earn a dollar or so on her account.

The Man in the Thick Lead Suit is also a gamble. I have a strong interest in nuclear disasters and nuclear development. I got this one from the nuclear history section. I can’t find a summary to tell me what it’s about, but someone is selling it on Amazon for $719.

Lastly, Neal Stephenson. Another I haven’t read yet, but I trust that it will be good. This will be my third of his and his second one was one I randomly picked up too. His book Seveneves was so good that I trust anything by him will be interesting. (Seriously, if nothing else, look up the opening line to Seveneves. It will hook you.)

Off to read now. Write some more scones later too. Later lovelies!!

[glorious-spoon]

On April 16, 2007, Dr. Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed while blocking the doors of his Virginia Tech classroom with his body as the gunman tried to enter, giving all but one of his students time to escape through the classroom windows.

On April 3, 2009, a receptionist named Shirley DeLucia was shot through the stomach at the American Civic Association in Binghamton and nonetheless remained on the line to 911 for almost 40 minutes, relaying information to the SWAT team (this particular mass shooting happened right down the road from where I was working at the time, incidentally, so it’s a little close to home).

On December 14, 2012, Victoria Soto, Lauren Rousseau, and Rachel D’Avino, all teachers and aides at Sandy Hook Elementary School, were killed trying to get their students to safety. Anne Marie Murphy was shot multiple times while shielding six-year-old Dylan Hockley with her body. Neither survived.

On June 17, 2015, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders was killed trying to shield his great-aunt from a gunman at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston. Prior to the shooting, the victims had welcomed the gunman into their Bible study session.

On June 12, 2016, Imran Yousuf, a Marine veteran and a bouncer at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, got as many as 70 people out of the club after the shooting started.

On March 15, 2019, Adeeb Sami was shot in the back shielding his children from the gunman in Christchurch, NZ. Daoud Nabi was killed protecting another worshipper; reportedly, his last words were to welcome his murderer into the mosque. Naeem Rashid was killed trying to tackle the gunman. His 21-year-old son Talha was also killed.

*

These are just the ones I know of off the top of my head. I just. Maybe we could give some of the obsessive attention we aim at mass shooters to the people who acted bravely in the face of their violence, huh? Because I swear to god, if I have to read another thinkpiece on the topic of ‘Let Us Delve Into The Soul Of This Pathetic Asshole Who Decided To Murder People Because His Life Sucked’, my brain may explode.

[cats-doulikedem]

"Dulcie said there were no cats in the Bible, but Kit wasn't sure she believed that. Why would there be horses and cows and dogs, wild pigs and weasels, but no cats? Why, when everyone knew that a little cat would have to be God's favorite?"