Pierre Burton is an excellent storyteller and his stories about cats are mostly quite charming, starting with the cats of the comic strips he read as a child, and moving on from the Depression until the 1990s. The stories aren't entire biographies, but are instead short anecdotes about each featured cat, accompanied by photos and Burton's sketches.

Although this book wasn't intended to be counted among Berton's history tomes, to be appreciated now it needs to be seen as very much a historical artifact. Things that were casually accepted at the time in terms of how cats are treated can be difficult to read now, and there is one particular story where Berton writes about

Spoiler

a man with 480 cats

that I found really difficult to take with a light and humorous spirit.