Tom Cox

Tom Cox combines memoir, nature writing, humour, and close observation of animals. The Good, the Bad and the Furry, published by Sphere in 2013, records life with four cats and continues the feline writing that brought him a wide readership. Its cast includes The Bear, a difficult elderly cat who became central to Cox’s public work, alongside the other animals and people sharing his home. Cox’s own book list places the volume within a sequence of cat memoirs, while his later writing ranges through landscape, folklore, and rural wandering. That broader career matters because the comedy in The Good, the Bad and the Furry grows from attentive description rather than a collection of detached anecdotes. Domestic mishaps sit beside reflections on attachment, ageing, and the odd terms on which humans live with animals. For readers looking for Tom Cox’s books, this memoir is both a characteristic comic work and a bridge toward the nature-rich essays and fiction he pursued afterward.