Felines of New York: A Glimpse Into the Lives of New York's Feline Inhabitants

By Jim Tews

Featuring more than 100 photos and quotes from cats in America’s most glamorous city, Felines of New York exposes the furry underbelly of New York City’s most glamorous, self-important residents.

Where the humans of New York are accomplished, interesting, thoughtful, creative, and even sometimes tragic figures, the cats are simply cats. They do not stand in line for brunch, or have season tickets to the Met, or go indoor-rock climbing in Brooklyn. They do not shop at thrift stores or nibble finger sandwiches at the Russian Tea Room. And they certainly do not give a flying f*ck about the Yankees.

No, the felines of New York bathe, purr, bask languidly in the sun, and occasionally cast baleful glances at the humans who provide them food and shelter. They are proof that behind every New Yorker, there lays a cat just waiting to destroy their IKEA futon and then eat their faces off when they die.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Nov 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781501125843

Jim Tews

Jim Tews made his stand-up television debut on Last Comic Standing and was featured in an episode of Louie in 2014. Previously he was one of 2011’s New Faces at Just for Laughs Montreal and has performed in the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, and SF Sketchfest. He recently created/cowrote and starred in The Undone Sweaters web series about a sociophobic Weezer cover band, which was featured on Funny or Die and Nerdist.com. He also created the HBO Labs’s web series The Opener and recently directed a feature length documentary about Cleveland’s independent comedy scene called Make Fun. Felines of New York is his first book, and perhaps his greatest achievement to date.

Book preview

photo of the wall

A GLIMPSE INTO THE LIVES

photo of the wall

OF NEW YORK’S

photo of the wall

FELINE INHABITANTS

This book is dedicated to all the cats in the world.

I do your bidding now.

INTRODUCTION

Some time ago I was walking by a clowder of feral cats in Williamsburg when one of them said to me, Hey, you should take my picture and ask me a few questions. Then post the picture and excerpts from that interview on a website. Maybe you could turn that into a book.

I think someone’s already doing that with humans, I said.

Yeah, but it would be way funnier with cats.

I had my camera and I’d never heard a cat speak, let alone make a specific request, so I obliged. After photographing and interviewing hundreds of cats over several months, I realized that each one of them has a story to tell. Most of those stories involve birds and make little sense, but many of them give a view of New York I’d never been privy to. I hope these cats and their stories will give you the same. And if they don’t, then just enjoy the pictures, I guess.

My grandparents immigrated here from New Jersey with nothing, and now I have this box. I wish they could see me. They’d be, like, How the fuck did you get that box? We never had a box. But I don’t know, the box just kind of showed up, so I sat in it.

—JEDDY, Lower East Side

I

believe climate change is real, but I don’t like to think about it. I

Reviews for Felines of New York

[coachmiamiinc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

living with 4 cats made me an expert -- or so i thought. this book added immensely to my education. and it gave me a lot of laughs. thanks.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A parody of the excellent Humans of New York, featuring pictures of cats, with short "quotes" from them. (Example: "My grandparents immigrated here from New Jersey, and now I have this box. I wish they could see me. They'd be like, 'How the fuck did you get that box? We never had a box.' But I don't know, the box just kind of showed up, so I sat in it.")The quotes are, overall, actually a lot funnier than I was expecting, and the cat pictures are very pretty. I want to pet and cuddle all of these cats. All of them. So much.