Beautiful photography. A great book about cats and their owners. I wrote down some new queer icons to learn more about.. Just a lovely little book.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review,

I was granted complimentary access to an eARC of Queer Icons and Their Cats by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was great! I wasn't sure if this was going to be just labelled pictures or what, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that every full-page photo is accompanied by a full-page mini bio about the icon (and cat) featured. In digital format, the order is photo, bio, bio, photo, which I assume means they're printing photos back-to-back on appropriate paper and bios back to back on a lighter stock, but this added the fun element of "do I know who this one is?" on every second photo. Another fun game to play: spot the "cats" that aren't domestic house cats. I spotted 2 cheetahs, an ocelot and a chihuahua (who also had a feline friend.)

Whether this ends up being your coffee table conversation starter or just a favourite pleasure read on the shelf, this is a great book to have around if anything about the LGBTQIA community speaks to you.

A small bugbear, first of all; this book would really be better called 'Queer Icons and Cats', because only about half of the cats in here actually belong to (or perhaps own, depending on your view of feline/human relationships) the aforementioned queer icons. That's not a criticism, just an observation!

This book is an interesting volume, with a photo of a famous queer person and a cat on one page and a brief description of the person (and sometimes the cat) on the other. It's really at its best when it's delving into the personalities of the cats involved; it's a sad fact that cats outshine humans in terms of beauty, interest, personality and talent in absolutely all cases, and although I'm a big fan of many of the people included in this book, the cats were definitely the best bit. Special mention to the trash-eating cat of a Michelin-starred chef. The audacity of that kitty is truly inspiring. All jokes aside, I genuinely enjoyed learning about the nuances of these people's personalities as conveyed through the lens of their interaction with our feline overlords; I think a lot can be said about a person by how they treat cats.

I also really appreciated the broad spectrum of people included here, from James Baldwin to Rachel Carson, Elton John to Bobbi Salvor Menuez - it was a great representation of how variegated the term 'queer icon' really is and should be. I think we often limit our perception of queer icons to people like Lady Gaga, Madonna and David Bowie, and don't really include the often doubly marginalised activists who actually do the work for queer liberation. This book did, and I think that's really to its credit.

The one thing that irked me somewhat was how so many of the bios in this book read a bit like resumés or advertisements. The biographies of historical figures, particularly James Baldwin, were nuanced, insightful and informative; I felt like they gave the reader both an overview of the individuals' contributions to queer culture and their personality in general. However, many of the bios of current queer people, particularly that of Frenchie Davis, were more like press releases than anything else, The writing in these ones came across like marketing copy, and it chafed a little; I don't need to be advertised to when I'm reading a book purportedly for edification or entertainment.

That said, it was an enjoyable little read, and I can absolutely see why they picked that photo of Jujubee for the cover. I kind of want it as a poster to decorate all my good rooms (the rooms my cat favours.)

Wonderful book, that gives you exactly what it says on the cover.
It contains photographs of wide range of people (and their cats) who have influenced the LGBTQ community, accompanied by a short bio of each person, what they mean to the community and how felines played a part in their lives: Great job on fitting so much info in such a short space, and still have it be comprehensive and to the point. Kudos to the writer/editor.

Jujubee and her beloved cat Priss look absolutely radiant in the cover photograph of this book. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to capture a shot like this, but if on point as it is here, it reveals a lot of the personality of both feline and owner.

In fact, a lot of the celebrity cat owners featured here (a lot of whom I had never heard of before) seem more relaxed in the presence of their furry friends, which adds a wonderfully disarming quality to many of the portraits.

Some are really old photographs, such as the sepia shot of Clifton Webb, while others are old in the sense that they show the cat owners at an impossibly young age (Elton John and George Michael spring to mind.) Others stretch the definition of ‘cat’, such as Ahohni at the Bronx Zoo with an orphaned big cat.

One of the cleverest pics is that of Sharon Needles and her careful positioning of a cat statue (there is a real pussy as well, no need to raise an eyebrow), while the severest shot is of Judith Butler, looking stern against a white staircase, with a cat positioned a few steps behind her – and looking even sterner, if that is possible.

My only complaint is that some of the portraits are clearly ‘snaps’, in the sense that there is little professionalism involved (where the poor cat has ‘green’ eye and appears to be a blob held rather gamely by their human, as if they will make a bolt for it at the slightest relaxation of the hold – which of course they will do. They are cats, after all.) Plus the fact that one can never have enough cat pics, so the limit of one per celebrity is a tad parsimonious.

Each photograph is accompanied by a brief essay elaborating on the human’s claim to fame and their connection to the feline world. The collection is certainly eclectic, ranging from trailblazing trans porn star and producer Buck Angel (love that name!) to Matthew Mitcham, Chaz Bono and Marlene Dietrich.

Despite the assertion in the introduction that the emergence of ‘cat men’ is challenging toxic masculinity, the majority of these photographs are of women. Not that this is any issue, of course, as the authors note:

Ultimately, the nonhuman animal world is not as binary as our human society’s gatekeepers would have us believe. Animals don’t about human social constructs like gender, and they don’t discriminate based on sexuality. Cats, in particular, expect to be revered and adored by all humans …

This was really great. I really enjoyed seeing all these queer icons and their cats. I think it'd make a nice coffee table book.

This book was so sweet and awesome! I "met" a whole bunch of new celebrities I didn't knew were queer or didn't knew at all, let alone knew were cat people. Some, like Freddy Mercury, were quite obvious, of course, but nontheless, this book provied a whole lot of new and awesome information.
It was nice to read and I enjoyed the pictures which had been included to the book.
A good book, I really liked it!
Free copy proived by Netgalley; thank you!

A delightful beautifully illustrated books all cats lovers will enjoy.. whether straight or queer, just the photograph of artists, writers, media starts and their cats made this book a wonderful work for me,

Thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so adorable. When I saw Ju Ju on it WITH her cat I just HAD to read it! It was really informational and gave a list of queer people ranging from drag queens, writers, filmmakers, designers, activists and many more. There were quite a few people I didn't recognize and got to learn a lot about queer icons posing with cats.

This would make a great coffee table book. The pictures were stunning and the mini biographies were to the point. I feel this is an important to read through and dip your toe into some current queer icons/history...plus there's cats!

5/5

Probably it's because the culture differences, I didn't find many icons I know about.
But I love cats.
Should be a good killing-time entreatment kind of a book.

This was fine. Moderately entertaining, but the write-ups were very surface level and a lot of the cat connections were tenuous at best.

What a joy of a book! Went through it in no time, would make a great gift for so many people.

A mix of posed photos, portraits, snapshots, selfies, with just enough queer history in the mix.

May have found a typo or two, would like to know who to contact about that (if they want me to that is).

I really enjoyed this book, and love love LOVE the cover! This is a prefect gift book for the cat lover or pop culture lover. Some of the photographs are not the best, but they all kept me interested. Great layout and interesting studies of queer icons and their cats.

This is a wonderful book. It has beautiful photos, as well as interesting information about each subject. I especially love hearing about the special bond between the person and their beloved companion. And any book with one of my favorites, Jujubee, on the cover pretty much guarantees that I'll pick it up! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC for review.

So stinking cute. First I love cats so I was mesmerized but also it was so cool to read about some famous influential backgrounds while seeing a personal side to them. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.