11 Comments
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Alexandra Barcus's avatar

IMHO M&M is one of the best novels ever written.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Yes, what a wild trip!

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Alexandra Barcus's avatar

And I think the religious deep dive is awesome too.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Yes, a fascinating part of the story.

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Robert A Mosher (he/him)'s avatar

Highlight of my morning, thank you for recalling old friends like Pangur Ban and introducing me to the Dubrovnik feline. Margarita I know well having served in Moscow where I spent many hours in the Spaso House ballroom!

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Joel J Miller's avatar

LOL! You’re welcome! The Pangur Ban tradition is pretty great.

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Renee Hale's avatar

This was delightful and fascinating! I’m curious, did you come across all this information while researching your book, or did you go looking for it specifically? Personally, I’m not a huge fan of pets, but I do hate rats so I would have been all pro-cat along with the scribes.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

No, not in my research. I just happened to see something about cats in medieval manuscripts and took it from there. And you know how the minute you notice something, you see it everywhere? I was suddenly like, “It’s all cats!”

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Renee Hale's avatar

The internet rabbit (cat?) hole is deep!

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Shayne Johnson's avatar

I didn't know how much I wanted to read about cats in iterature till this arrived in my in-box this morning. What a fun way to start my day. Also, a newish book, The Way by Cary Groner, has an excellent "cat as a side-kick" character and a talking raven (whick is an entire other deep dive). Thanks much!

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Joel J Miller's avatar

That’s cool. Thanks for the tip!

And glad you got a kick out of it!

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