Meet These Delightful Bookshop Cats (and One Dog!)

Book lovers and cats have a great deal in common. Both revel in the art of stillness, both find joy in distraction—whether it’s a playful passing shadow or a captivating plot twist—and both are never happier than when in a comfortable spot with time to pass and a curiosity to satisfy.

In Bookshop Cats, from bustling city centers to quaint village nooks, meet the cats who have claimed their place between the shelves, weaving their own stories into the narratives that surround them.

Quimby

Age: Nineteen months
Breed: Domestic Shorthair, tabby
Bookshop: Wild Geese Bookshop, Franklin, Indiana, USA

Arrival story: We hosted a kitten-adoption event on the porch for Independent Bookstore Day with Shelby County Community Cats and couldn’t part with him.

Temperament: He looks constantly surprised.

Fun fact: He prefers office work. And he once got stuck in a hole under the cabinet like Winnie-the-Pooh in the tree.

Literary alias: A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. He has a honey-potshaped belly—hence getting stuck in the wall. Oh, bother.

Boris and Arkady

Age: Six months
Breed: Domestic Shorthair, black
Bookshop: Ophelia’s Books, Seattle, Washingon, USA

Arrival story: Our shop has been home to various cats since its inception thirty years ago. In fact, the bookshop is named after Ophelia, the first cat to reside here. Boris and Arkady are the latest.

Temperament: Twin brothers, these rapscallions can be told apart by Boris’s kinked tail and the colors of their collars. Boris is the more vocal and brazen of the two, while Arkady is thoughtful and plotting. Arkady is picky about the laps he sits on, while Boris’s tastes are more cosmopolitan. They both take midday siestas after an active morning. They’re gentle, curious and docile. They enjoy frequent tummy rubs and will even submit to a rougher head massage like a dog. They both enjoy attention. Sometimes they follow customers around, so some may call them “needy.” If you’re ready to finish a petting session, they will gently pat your hand, indicating that they are not done with you yet.

They like to lie directly underfoot when we’re sitting at the checkout desk. Unlike previous cats, they don’t seem inclined to attack or bat at people they don’t like. They will perch on our antique spiral staircase to the basement, eyeing the activity below. They’re reluctant to move from these vantage points even when someone must get up or down. Surprisingly, the underside of the staircase’s base is one of their favorite nap locations, despite the tromping of customers and staff up and down.

Fun fact: They’re newcomers to the shop, so we’re still waiting for their full personalities to develop. Arkady likes to wait for us to clean the litter box before immediately using it again. Boris detests the dinosaurs hidden around our shop and single-handedly (pawdedly?) is executing a second extinction while no one is looking. Also, we no longer have any plants in the shop thanks to their interest in the native flora, though we are considering expanding our cacti collection. We’re a used bookstore and often buy books from the public. Once a seller has unloaded their boxes or bags, both brothers may try to inhabit the empty containers, lying in wait to surprise. Boris has also been known to try to squeeze himself into backpack pockets that are too small.

Literary alias: They are named after the sci-fi authors and brothers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. We enjoy Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries, and sometimes they give off vibes of the detective Nero and his assistant Archie. Arkady sits back, while Boris ventures out for clues. For the time being, however, they weigh exactly the same.

Copper

Age: Two
Breed: Unknown
Bookshop: Booktenders, Barboursville, West Virginia, USA

Arrival story: One of the owners, Ashley, went to the local animal shelter looking for a new shop pet. Copper was in the dog section… which is strange because he is clearly a cat. He came home with Ashley and works hard at the shop whenever Ashley is here.

Temperament: Copper loves grabbing the various stuffies we have stocked around the shop. He dislikes being told that he can’t have said stuffies. Copper also loves ice cubes. Whenever we open our ice fridge, he comes running and we have to pay him the ice tax.

Fun fact: Copper was adopted right after Booktenders did their biggest author event ever with Barbara Kingsolver for the paperback release of Demon Copperhead. Thus, we named him Copper…even though Demon is a more fitting name sometimes.

Literary alias: Chauncey from T.J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, because, like Chauncey, no one really knows what Copper is. But he is the friendliest little dude and would make a great bellhop.

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