"Cat Dependent No More" by "Dr." Jeff Reid ($5.95 paper, Fawcett) is a take-off on the torrent of self-help volumes on the book market.

Reid adapts contemporary psychobabble to felines, whipping along at a dizzying rate with whirligig prose.Don't confuse Reed's opus with the stream of "I hate cats" books that were high on the charts a couple of years ago. Those weren't particularly funny and several were vicious. I suspect that Reid rather likes cats and knows a bit about them.

His goal is to show up the pretentious, superficial tone, language and recommendations in most self-help books. Don't miss the chapter on dog dependency: "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Rover."

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