Customer Reviews

ABC Cat

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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I am a photographer and I am also a big fan of black-and-white photographs. But what I've seen being published in this area in the past few years for me has been pretty disappointing.

But now a new book comes along that is so simple, so elegant and so beautiful that it gives me my faith back in editors and publishers. This book is really a jewel!

It is so simple-just a series of black-and-white photographs of a single cat taken over several years, showing the cat doing what all cats do so well: being independent, sneaky, and very funny.

ABC Cat consists of a series of photographs, each one illustrating one letter of the alphabet. This concept provides the necessary structure, or theme, to the book, and the way it has been done is very clever.

But this is less important to me than the simple fact that a book of such elegant, beautiful, and intimate cat photographs has made it into the commercial world.

Three cheers for Lorenz Kienzle!

Another customer reviewer called this book "elegant, beautiful, and intimate." And it is. It's also gentle and oddly moving. The photographer's affection for Kater is apparent in every frame. Physically, Kater is a garden-variety kitty, but by the mid-point of the alphabet, the viewer sees him as his family does, and he is beautiful. This isn't an ordinary, vapid cat book. I think it's essentially about love.

What a pleasure to look at good photography and domestic animals, in this case, a cat. Pet books haven't had the best of luck, good ones, are hard to find. Araki has a fantastic book about cats in Tokyo, and extraordinary Magnum photographer Elliot Erwitt had photographed dogs since forever, with wit and skill. Apart from these, pet books tend to be kitsch, senseless, collections of awful photographs, with no sense of reality and story telling. Portraying animals dressed as humans, grotesque and sad. ABC Cat, is elegant, skillful and at moments witty, contemplative and revealing. I hope this is the first of a new beginning of pet books, where the subject matter is not overriding the medium. Congratulations on this book. It is rare joy; everybody who loves photography and animals (or Cats) should have one copy.

Lorenz Kienzle, though living in Berlin, germany, was presented by galleries in united kingdom, italy, france and so on - and he is proud to be presented by the US-publishers Stewart, Tabori & Chang in New York, Manhattan, 115 West 18th Street: and they have done their work very well: The cover of this little precious book is made of black velvet, so cats really will start to love this book too, taking place on the cover for a dream-time. CAT-ABC: the letter "S" for example shows "STRETCH" - the authors tomcat named "KATER" is doing his very best to reach the level of aerobic heroes like Jane Fonda. Letter "R": ROUND - a sleeping-body-hieroglyph showing a circle-form (making a mimikry-correspondance to a coffee-pot); letter "L" - LENGTH: extreme-show: cat KATER is demonstrating, that he is able to make himself as long as a hare - in order to cover the length of his favorite sofa, so that no one else can take a seat. Letter "E": EDGE: cats talent, to let the chin hang over the edge while resting on tables, chairs, cupboards, refrigerators or bookshelfs. Letter "Q" . QUADRUPED: showing footprints in the snow. Letter "C" - CUDDLE: evidence, that human and animal beings are able to make a sculpture of togetherness while sleeping in the same bed. Letter "H" - HIDE AND SEEK - I think this is a manner of playing we can find in the whole world - not only between (human) childs and their parents, between cats and dogs, birds and horses - it's a gift to see the same thing taking place between animals and the extraordinary beings, that climbed some levels higher on the evolution-ledder - HIDE and SEEK - it's a way, to remember the roots of all living. Letter "J" - JUMP - shifting the reader of the book in astonishment and leading him to the opinion, that some cats are jumping more risky than parachutists. Very often books about cats are awful kitch, indeed, portraying animals dressed as humans, posing for bad jokes, they can't identify. But this ABC of cats seems to be composed in memory of the grandfather of animal behavior-science Konrad Lorenz: The photographer Lorenz Kienzle now created a well done picture-collection of animal-observation. If cats could write a customer-review, they would scratch on the paper: "Yeah, that's it!"

This was originally a gift to me, and have since given it twice to cat lovers who have raved. The photography is unusually stunning black and white, with very whimsical uses of the cat/alphabet juxtaposition. The suede cover with the cut-out is nicely designed, and helps it stand out among other gift books. There's also a wonderful description of the author and how the book came about - which just adds to the personalization of what could easily have been a "typical" cat photo gift book.

Lorenz Kienzle, though living in Berlin, germany, was presented by galleries in united kingdom, italy, france and so on - and he is proud to be presented by the US-publishers Stewart, Tabori & Chang in New York, Manhattan, 115 West 18th Street: and they have done their work very well: The cover of this little precious book is made of black velvet, so cats really will start to love this book too, taking place on the cover for a dream-time. CAT-ABC: the letter "S" for example shows "STRETCH" - the authors tomcat named "KATER" is doing his very best to reach the level of aerobic heroes like jane fonda. Letter "R": ROUND - a sleeping-body-hieroglyph showing a circle-form (making a mimikry-correspondance to a coffee-pot); letter "L" - LENGTH: extreme-show: cat KATER is demonstrating, that he is able to make himself as long as a hare - in order to cover the length of his favorite sofa, so that no one else can take a seat. Letter "E": EDGE: cats talent, to let the chin hang over the edge while resting on tables, chairs, cupboards, refrigerators or bookshelfs. Letter "Q" . QUADRUPED: showing footprints in the snow. Letter "C" - CUDDLE: evidence, that human and animal beings are able to make a sculpture of togetherness while sleeping in the same bed. Letter "H" - HIDE AND SEEK - I think this is a manner of playing we can find in the whole world - not only between (human) childs and their parents, between cats and dogs, birds and horses - it's a gift to see the same thing taking place between animals and the extraordinary beings, that climbed some levels higher on the evolution-ledder - HIDE and SEEK - it's a way, to remember the roots of all living. Letter "J" - JUMP - shifting the reader of the book in astonishment and leading him to the opinion, that some cats are jumping more risky than parachutists. Very often books about cats are awful kitch, indeed, portraying animals dressed as humans, posing for bad jokes, they can't identify. But this ABC of cats seems to be composed in memory of the grandfather of animal behavior-science Konrad Lorenz: The photographer Lorenz Kienzle now created a well done picture-collection of animal-observation. If cats could write a customer-review, they would scratch on the paper: "yeah, that's it!"