By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

Fascinating! Someone has finally explained why cats act the way they do. And just in time  too, since the stork delivered two kittens to us recently. The library has an excellent extensive collection of cat care books, and delightful cat memoir books like those by James Herriot, but I went straight to Temple Grandin’s works on the neurophysiology of animal behavior.

A cat is just a really different animal than, say, a dog. Their brain organization, the “domestication” path, the communication modes — this was all news to me.

Grandin’s works are all wonderfully readable for the non-scientist, from her autobiographical memoirs, Emergence, Labeled Autistic, and  Thinking in Pictures : and Other Reports from My Life with Autism to her works on animal behavior, Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, and her latest one: Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.

We even have the award winning movie, Temple Grandin, starring Clare Danes.