The Travelling Cat Chronicles

By: Hiro Arikawa
Location: FIC ARI
Genre: Cats, friends, life and....

I thought this would be a great book to read over summer, highly reviewed, its going to be made into a movie and it has a cat that speaks in it. A nice purry kind of summer read to make me feel nice and stroked.
It is narrated in turns by Nana the cat and by his owner- Satoru. This is a funny, uplifting, heartrending story of a cat that is profoundly human.
Nana was a stray, a survivor but one that was injured and Satoru was a single guy that lived in an apartment close by and owned the van that Nana called home. Soon Nana lived in the flat and owned it- as cats do.
The story is about road trips that Satoru and Nana embark on around Japan, we discover the country, the food, the culture, and the story of Satoru's life and the lives of his mates they visit. Along the way, we get the enjoyable and often cynical voice of Nana, who ensures we smile in the midst of the sadness in peoples stories and reminds us that cats are soveriegn!
I was always guessing as to why Satoru was trying to offload Nana to friends, what was the motivation for discarding his cat- my fears were founded!  
So as I sat on my beanbag in the sun, drinking a cuppa tea, I wore my sunglasses!
It is a great story, very readable, easily envisioned and it will make for a cracker movie, that will issue tissues as you go in!