The Art of Purring by David Michie

**This review is part of the Amazon Vine Program**

I've read "The Dalai Lama's Cat" and absolutely loved it. So I was very eager to read this book. And it was good. Not as good as the first, but still informative and a positive read.

Rinpoche is the Dalai Lama's cat. She has a considerable amount of freedom as she rules his household and goes to a local coffee shop to hang out with her friends there. But being his cat has some responsibilities too. She has to work at improving herself and in this book he gave her the task to study the art of purring. Just why she purrs and what happiness means in general.

Rinpoche is a cat. She narrates as a cat. But she has a pretty deep sense of the world around her. And even herself at times. So even though you know that she's a cat, she does read as a human being talking. But that's ok, this is fiction. I like the way she as a cat describes the people around her and the good and bad of them. She may not be peaceful all the time, but she has a goal of peace and happiness and that really gets to the heart of what this book is about. There wasn't much of the Dalai Lama in this one though, he was mostly just someone she referred to when musing about different things.

Most will probably immediately associate this as a book about Buddhism. And it kind of is. But not in the sense that it's crammed down your throat. It's just not that type of style. It's more life lessons, things we can do to be happier, all without being overt about saying "Hey meditate and do yoga and life will be peachy!" So I appreciated it for that. And like in the first book, there always seems to be some kind of lesson that really hits home for me and what I'm currently doing in my life. I suspect it would be the same for others because it really does cover a wide variety of topics. My only compliant would be that there was more about the side characters in this book and I thought that it took a bit of the focus away from Rinpoche and the lessons she was learning. But it's a very, very small complaint.

Such a nice book and I would continue to read more the author wrote about Rinpoche and her life with the Dalai Lama. The first two will definitely have a permanent position on my bookshelf.

The Art of Purring
Copyright 2013
208 pages

The Dalai Lama's Cat by David Michie

**This review is part of the Amazon Vine program**

I have to say I absolutely adored this book.  It was cute, informative, and really opened by eyes to Buddhism and some of its aspects, even if that wasn't its main intent.  I've been wanting to learn more about Buddhism anyway, and without meaning to, choosing this book to read helped with that.

The Dalai Lama's cat focuses around HHC (His Holiness' Cat)and her journey toward enlightenment while being near the Dalai Lama.  Found as a stray on the street and being a particularly weak one at that, she is nursed back to help by the Dalai Lama himself and his assistants.  As she stays with him and becomes his pet, she watches different people enter his life and seek learning and learns a few lessons herself.  While doing so, she finds peace with her faults and learns to be a better cat.  And really, this description is simplistic of the whole story itself, but I find it hard to describe it without giving away the pleasure of reading that I had myself.

HHC is a pretty funny cat.  She has her flaws but wants to be better, and I think that reflects on many people as well, so you can identify with her even if she is a cat.  She parallels things in her own life with that of the problems of the staff and visitors to the Dalai Lama's home and by endearing herself to us, she also makes it easier to relate to these people as well.  And those other people are interesting in their own right.  Franc, an owner of a cafe nearby is pretty ego-centric but you get to watch him grow through the book.  Other characters may only appear for a chapter, but you learn as well for them, like the cook with anger issues, who had to take a look at why she was angry and what she herself could do to improve it, rather than wanting others to change what they would be doing.  And just as a side note, I do appreciate that some of the Dalai Lama's helpers were named after the fourteenth Dalai Lama, it added some real life relevance.

While this story is about a cat, HHC, it is so much more than that.  I learned more about Buddhist beliefs than from anything else I've ever read (which is admittedly not that much), but it was such an approachable way of learning that I really enjoyed it.  Each point was made with a story and what a person was doing to improve their lives rather than just giving the lessons by rote.  And it made it easier to remember.  I did enjoy the snippets about HHC though and how she too tried to learn.  While being just your ordinary cat that loves food and has an insatiable curiosity, she just had a spark that made her very special and very capable of being the cat of the Dalai Lama.  Indeed, if the Dalai Lama were to possess a cat, I'd imagine it to be very like HHC.  AS you would suspect there is some mention of Buddhism in this book (and I've already mentioned it myself) if you don't enjoy reading about other ways of belief than your own, this is probably not a book you'd enjoy.  But if you're curious about Buddhism and just like a good story, this is probably a good choice.

I definitely found the book an enjoyable read and will probably look at other books by this author.  He has an approachable reading style and a way of imparting knowledge without forcing it down your throat.  I very much liked The Dalai Lama's Cat.

The Dalai Lama's Cat
Copyright 2012
216 pages