Previously published as Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

People kept asking: Why would you have cats that don't love you back?

The morning after Courtney Gustafson moved into an old house in the Poets Square neighbourhood of Tucson, Arizona, she noticed tiny pawprints all over her driveway. They were the first evidence of a colony of feral cats, who, to her surprise, would expand her world spectacularly.

Beebs was the first to appear. Then there was Monkey, the dark-blotched 'scheming little gremlin' calico, and Reverse Monkey, her timid, white-blotched opposite. There were Sad Boy and Lola, the inseparable pair who made their way across the internet and into strangers' wedding vows. And there was Goldie, the tiny king of Poets Square: sick, skinny, but completely fearless.

Poets Square is a love letter to community in a broken society, told through the cats Courtney meets in dark alleys, neglected homes and her own driveway; cats she cherishes and must sometimes let go. Above all, it explores what loving these feral creatures, in all their noise and need, can teach us about care, connectedness and the power of hope.

'Cats are mystical beings, bridging the spiritual and the tangible. Courtney Gustafson's Poet Square is a book that helps us connect to this spiritual world, offering a bridge to the ethereal' Ai Weiwei

'Courtney Gustafson writes with uncommon grace about the castoff, the abandoned, the invisible. This book should be read and treasured for its ability to make the reader more human and humane' Lauren Slater, author of Blue Dreams

'Deftly intertwined with the individual stories of all these cats is her own story of how she got there ... She is clear-eyed about the deviation of her life' Esther Walker, The Spike