College Cats of Oxford & Cambridge

by Richard Surman

Distinguished felines from England's most renowned universities take the stage in the latest book by the creator of Cathedral Cats.

Genres: Nonfiction

96 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Richard Surman is a British writer and photographer, working from the UK and Spain. He specializes in all types of location photography and works with a wide range of multinational corporate, editorial, advertising and design clients. He has published a number of books and also collaborated on a wide range of travel, gardening and specialist guide books, as well as contributing to magazines in the UK, USA and Spain.

Reviews

[Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the idea of meeting a cat that frequents a bookshop or going into an office and finding a cat sat on the reception desk*, or perhaps spotting a cat curled up on a chair in an old country house. There's something charmingly eccentric about the thought. College Cats is this in book form. Oxford and Cambridge are, I think, quite commonly seen as bastions of eccentricity. Having gone to a pretty modern redbrick university in a big city, talking to my handful of friends who went to one or other of the Oxbridge universities... it was like seeing a snapshot of a different world. It was so different from my own university experience and, while I'm not sorry about that, my halls of residence would definitely have been improved by an official cat or two.

I think cats are quite suited to these more eccentric places. Certainly Surman seems to have found plenty of material to work with. College Cats is full of mini bios and amusing anecdotes about some of their most interesting characters. Definitely recommend for any catlover.

*One of my jobs did include a westie as receptionist, but although he was cute... he still wasn't a cat.

[Catherine Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knowing that most of these cats are probably dead by now makes this book somewhat melancholy. It is probably best for dipping in to for a moment of light reading as the text is not all that enthralling. I will probably keep it though because the photographs of the cats are pleasant.