{ "item_title" : "Poets Square", "item_author" : [" Courtney Gustafson "], "item_description" : "NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - An intimate memoir about the importance of community and care in a world that can feel impossibly broken--and a story about accidentally going viral while tending to a colony of feral cats. AN NPR AND CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR When Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, she didn't know that the property came with thirty feral cats. Focused only on her own survival--in a new relationship, during a pandemic, with poor mental health and a job that didn't pay enough--Courtney was reluctant to spend any of her own time or money caring for the wayward animals. But the cats--their pleading eyes, their ribs showing, the new kittens born in the driveway--didn't give her a choice. She had no idea about the grief and hardship of animal rescue, the staggering size of the problem in neighborhoods across the country. And she couldn't have imagined how that struggle--toward an ethics of care, of individuals trying their best amid spectacularly failing systems--would help pierce a personal darkness she'd wrestled with for much of her life. She also didn't expect that the TikTok and Instagram accounts she created to share the quirky personalities of the wild but lovable cats, like Monkey, Goldie, Francois, and Sad Boy, would end up saving her home. Courtney writes toward a vision of connectedness, showing how taking care of the cats reshaped her understanding of empathy, resilience, and the healing power of wholly showing up for something outside yourself. She takes us from the dark alleys where she feeds feral cats to inside the tragically neglected homes where she climbs over piles of trash, and occasionally animals, and then into her own driveway with the cats she loves and must sometimes let go. Compelling and tender, Poets Square is as much about cats as it is about the urgency of care, community, and a little bit of dumb hope.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/59/372/761/0593727614_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "28.00", "online_price" : "28.00", "our_price" : "28.00", "club_price" : "28.00", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "28.00" } }

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“Sad Boy appeared each night like the moon, rising large and white over our roof.” Beside him sat Lola, his wife, who acted as his protector and companion. Sad Boy and Lola were two of the 30 cats Courtney Gustafson was surprised to find in her yard when she moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tuscon, Arizona. Gustafson’s puzzlement quickly turned to a desire to help. The cats were starving, many of them sick. She and her boyfriend were strapped for cash; her job at a nonprofit food pantry couldn’t cover her medical debt, let alone cat food. Gustafson recounts her adventures with these cats and many others in her poignant, beautifully written debut memoir, Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats, a book that will change the way readers think about feline and human nature alike. As the author describes her growing relationships with the cats and her journey to becoming a caretaker, trap-neuter-return practitioner, community organizer and social media content creator (with 1 million followers on TikTok), she weaves in anecdotes from her past experiences with relationships, identity, trauma and family. Gustafson deftly relates the story of Sad Boy and Lola alongside that of her first romantic relationship with an emotionally abusive older man. MK, who mistook another adult cat, Georgie, for her kitten, going so far as to nurse her, presents an opportunity for Gustafson to process her mother’s cancer treatment. In some cases, the cat stories overtake the more memoiristic parts of the book, and readers might be tempted to rush through them to learn more about Bubbles, François and Dr. Big Butt. But when Gustafson hits the balance, her essays sing. What makes Poets Square stand out among other animal welfare stories is Gustafson’s insistence that the suffering of domestic animals often mirrors the suffering of the people who care for them, especially those who are stymied by poverty, mental and chronic illness, homelessness and a host of other societal problems over which they lack control. “Feral,” she writes, “just means that an animal was abandoned by the system that created it,” the same systems, we can surmise, that abandon people. A necessary read for those who work and volunteer in animal welfare, Poets Square is also a loving tribute to the way animals can provide “bright thriving spots of hope in the world.”