'Gentle, meditative... Cat lovers, prepare to weep' THE TIMES, Book of the Month


It was the end of summer, 1977. I found a cat, a little ball of fluff. A teeny tiny baby kitten.

A beloved Japanese modern classic about our special connection with cats, and how they can change our lives over the course of a lifetime.

For the last twenty years, Japanese readers have been falling in love with Mayumi Inaba’s story of life with her cat Mii, after she rescued her as a newborn kitten from a riverbank in Tokyo.

We follow their everyday joys through the seasons, as Mayumi develops her career as a writer and finds her feet in life, with her small feline always at her side.

Mornings With My Cat Mii lovingly chronicles Mayumi and Mii’s unshakeable twenty-year bond, meditating on solitude, companionship, the writing life, and how we care for our cats as they grow older.

Translated into English for the first time by world-renowned translator Ginny Tapley Takemori, this beloved Japanese modern classic is a celebration of how a cat can change our lives forever.

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

** Readers ADORE Mornings with My Cat Mii **

‘I cried. Books rarely make me cry ... but this one was absolutely beautiful regardless. It made me reflect on grief, and love, and how to love is to feel intensely (for better or for worse)’

‘Gentle and enchanting and had me in floods by the end’

‘Loved this! A poetic, beautiful ode to a cat that changed a woman's life ... it's sweet, sad, but ultimately a gorgeous little book … a lovely little gem’

‘Sweet and heartbreaking’

‘This book was just so pure and beautiful’

‘As someone who has been deeply affected by the loss of cats in the past … this was raw, emotional and relatable’

‘As a cat mum, this destroyed me’

‘Told with grace, beauty and love’