Over the Counter #344

What books caught my eye this week as they passed over the library counter and under my scanner? This week's connection is an animal in the title....

First up is How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety: and Abstinence, Drugs, Satanism and Other Dangers that Threaten Their Nine Lives by Zachary Auburn.

From the publisher, Three Rivers Press:

"The cats of America are under siege!

Long gone are the good old days when a cat’s biggest worries were mean dogs or a bath. Modern cats must confront satanists, online predators, the possibility of needing to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and countless other threats to their nine lives.

For over four decades, the American Association of Patriots have stood at the vanguard of our country’s defense by helping to prepare our nation’s cat owners for the difficult conversations they dread having with their pets. Written in a simple Q&A format, How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety answers crucial questions such as, “What is the right age to talk to my cat about the proper use of firearms?” and “What are the benefits of my cat living a lifestyle of abstinence?” and especially “Why does my cat need to use the internet? Can’t he just play with yarn like cats used to do?”

Our country—and our cats—stand at a precipice. It will take courage, and it will take hard work, but armed with the knowledge within these pages, we can make our cats—and America—great again!"

And on a more serious note, The Coyote's Bicycle: The Untold Story of the Rise of a Borderland Empire Paperback by Kimball Taylor.

From the publisher, Tin House Books:

"It wasn’t surprising when the first abandoned bicycles were found along the dirt roads and farmland just across the border from Tijuana—the area’s residents were accustomed to all kinds of refuse and detritus—but the bikes kept coming: mountain bikes, touring bikes, BMXs, and beach cruisers, all piling up, day after day. They went from curiosity, to nuisance, to phenomenon. But until they caught the eye of journalist Kimball Taylor, only a small cadre of human smugglers—coyotes—and migrants could say how or why they’d gotten there. This is the true story of 7,000 bikes that made an incredible journey and one young man from Oaxaca who arrived at the border with nothing but the clothes on his back, built a small empire, and then vanished. Taylor follows the trail of the border bikes as they make their way through a surprisingly diverse spectrum of society’s most powerful institutions, and, with the help of an unlikely source, he reconstructs the rise of one of Tijuana’s most innovative coyotes. Touching on issues of immigration and globalization, as well as the history of the US/Mexico border, The Coyote’s Bicycle is at once an immersive investigation of an outrageous occurrence and a true-crime, rags-to-riches, coming-of-age story."

(Over the Counter is a regular feature at A Bookworm's World. I've sadly come the realization that I cannot physically read every book that catches my interest as it crosses over my counter at the library. But... I can mention them and maybe one of them will catch your eye as well. See if your local library has them on their shelves!)