From kittens peering out of curtained shop windows to mysterious tomcats slinking across tiled rooftops, les chats parisiens embody the sensuous spirit of Paris. This charming volume presents an artful gallery of black-and-white photographs of felines by such twentieth-century master photographers as Jacques Henri Lantigue, Edouard Boubat, and Robert Doisneau. Accompanied by an entertaining introduction and whimsical musings on cats by some of France's most illustrious intellectuals, including Chateaubriand, Baudelaire, and Colette, Les Chats de Paris will delight cat lovers and Francophiles the world over.
There are some amazing shots of cats in this book, more so, even, than of dogs in Conrad's "Les Chiens de Paris". (I would assume it's more difficult to pose a cat than a dog.) However, there is also a bit of filler here, which wasn't true of the dog volume, possibly due to a smaller pool of eligible photos. Still, these cats are in rain gutters, atop pay phones, chasing mice along yardsticks, peeking over sheet music, performing in a street circus, tucked into a man's four-foot beard.The pictures are adorable and innocent, but watch out. Conrad's witty introduction contains some racy passages (about the she-cat's sexual prowess, and a neutered tom's suicide) that might make some think twice about giving it to (literate) children. (If "Chiens" is G, "Chats" is PG-13.) For the urban adult ailurophile, however, this is the perfect gift.
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