Perkins, the library cat at “Bloggington-on-Sea Carnegie Library on the dockside of Bloggington harbour” is the host of the Good Library Blog, part of The Good Library Guide website, an ombudsman for libraries in the U.S. and the U.K.
Perkins can generally be counted upon to provide library news found nowhere else and insightful commentary that never fails to scratch below the surface and leave a keen, plump hairball of perception in its aftermath.
Recently, however, Perkins – in a fit of delirious feline pique inspired, perhaps, by underindulgence by his caregivers or overindulgence in a kilo of catnip, or both – posted an item that fairly screams Separation Anxiety and proclaims him as the poster-cat for self-absorption:
“This blog is against people reading books. They waste your life and lead you to unproductive ways. Here you learn of duplicity and mendacious behaviour. They have never done any good for anyone (aside from the rapacious distributors who salivate at the idea of a book which becomes widely popular). They are worse than the most destructive drugs. Away with them; keep them out of the hands of our innocent children and out of the sight of our cherished veterans who will only sadden their lonely last days among the covers. Be political, be of the public officer class, be business like– destroy the libraries now. They are bringing this great nation to its knees- the newspapers are full of the end of our civilisation. So don’t read them either.
“The three stages of intoxication are ‘the dignified’, ”the quarrelsome’, and ‘the amorous’. Such information could only be obtained either from a book, or a bottle, which makes plain the need to prevent indulgence of these kinds. Fiction- pah!”
One hopes that this patently Me! Me! Me! meow is just the transient ouch of a prissy gib still smarting after separation from his testicles and not something more sinister. If the latter, the librarians at Bloggington-on-Sea Carnegie Library on the dockside of Bloggington harbour may be forced to turn the case over to Bruno, the Library’s sergeant-at-arms and alpha-male of the Library’s K-9 corps, who takes no guff from grimalkins with a bitter gripe.