Tilly has spent most of her adult life in an Oxfordshire shelter, unchosen, unwanted and practically feral. Seeking a distraction from her own troubles, the author and renowned pet columnist, Celia Haddon begins a project to transform Tilly into a household pet. Through Tilly's journey from unwanted and unadoptable cat to adored pet, Celia begins to explore her own inward journey and the way that cats had helped her through the difficulties of childhood and middle age, through to self knowledge. By loving Tilly she found she could love her inner self.

Dear Human Race, It is with much regret, and a huge sigh of frustration, that I am writing this letter. For generations you have been taking our goodwill for granted but it behoves me, as a representative for my species, to say 'enough is enough'. You are unpredictable and inconsistent, often behaving in a way that is illogical to us and frankly unhygienic (all that touching!). I believe the modern phrase is 'You just don't get me!' Well, no more. My fellow felines and I have put pen to paper and paw to keyboard to write a series of letters that I believe will put you on the path to understanding where you've gone wrong. We feel we have covered most of your most common errors - from the food you give us (both the lack of quality and quantity) and your insistence on having other cats (and even dogs) in the house, to your bizarre toilet habits and our obsession with your socks. Consider this your performance review from cats... and you don't come out well. Yours sincerely, Sidney Fishbone, Esq.

Start training your kitten early. Ban small girls from the house. Small girls are tempted to commit that ultimate crime - dressing up cats. Be a conscientious door attendant. Cats want to be in when they are out, out when they are in, and sometimes both simultaneously. This work is a collection of cat wisdom for cat lovers with practical advice.

Drawing on her years of experience as a pet agony aunt on the pages of the Daily Telegraph, Celia Haddon unravels the mysteries of cat behaviour and dispenses tips and advice to help readers make their cats happy.

When Jo saw Anna feeding Molly meatballs from her bra, she knew that here was a woman after her own heart. What she couldn't know was that this was the start of a friendship that would take them both on an incredible and bizarre journey. From nearly drowning in swimming pools during filming to tearing around Paris in search of Rin Tin Tin's grave, the more the dog world opened up to them, the more convinced they became, like Bardot and Mae West before them, that man is not necessarily a girl's best friend. This is a hilarious, touching tale of how two women's lives were transformed by their pets.

Cats have padded silently into our hearts, bringing with them their grace, their independence, and their essential mystery. Anyone who lives with a cat knows the strange and mysterious bond that grows between human and animal, as they make houses into homes, heal stress, and provide endless entertainment. In this exquisitely produced anthology, drawn from the writing of cat lovers through the ages, Celia Haddon offers a testimony and a tribute to that unique and rewarding relationship between humans and their feline companions in which cats, in their utmost complexity, remain among us but not of us. Above all, she reminds us of the truth of why cats matter.

Though humans cannot speak cat, they vocalise repeatedly. Most of their vocalisations are meaningless and can be completely ignored. In urban areas, fun can be got from hunting human objects such as mink stoles or old underpants. For some reason this kind of prey is usually greeted with human laughter. To get a male human off an armchair, jump on the back of it, hold down his head with a firm paw and lick his bald patch. Purring right into the ear is one of the kindest ways to tell a human being that it is time to get out of bed.