Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans —though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.

A stray cat brings together five strangers over the course of one fateful summer in this heartwarming novel about love, found family, and the power of connection.Núria, a single-by-choice barista with a resentment for the “crazy cat lady” label, is a member of The Meow-Yorkers, a group in Brooklyn who takes care of the neighborhood’s stray cats. On one of her volunteering days, she starts finding Post-It notes from a secret admirer at the spot where her favorite stray lives—a black cat named Cat. Like most cats, he is rather curious and sly, so of course he knows who the notes are from. Núria, however, is clueless.Are the notes from Collin, a bestselling author and self-professed hermit with a weakness for good coffee? Are they from Lily, a fresh-out-of-high school Georgia native searching for her long-lost half-sister? Are they from Omar, the beloved neighborhood mailman going through an early mid-life crisis? Or are they from Bong, the grieving widower who owns her favorite bodega? When Cat suddenly falls ill, these five strangers find themselves connected in their desire to care for him and discover that chance encounters can lead to the meaningful connections they've been searching for.

For fans of Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs and Murata Sayaka’s Earthlings, this Japanese bestseller from renowned anime director Makoto Shinkai features four inspirational and heartwarming vignettes following women and their cats in their quests for love and connection. Lying alone on the edge of the sidewalk in an abandoned cardboard box, a nameless narrator contemplates the indifferent world around him. With his mother long gone, his only company is the sound of the nearby train. Just as he fears that the end is near, a young woman peers down at him, this fateful encounter changing their lives forever So begins the first story in She and Her Cat, a collection of four interrelated, stream-of-conscious short stories in which four women and their feline companions explore the frailty of life, the pain of isolation, and the limits of communication. With clever narration alternating between the cats and their owners, She and Her Cat offers a unique and sly commentary on human foibles and our desire for connection. A whimsical short story anthology unlike any other, it effortlessly demonstrates that even in our darkest, most lonesome moments, we are still united to this wonderous world—often in ways we could never have expected.

The Kokoro Clinic for the Soul reopens in this delightful follow-up to the award-winning, bestselling Japanese novel We'll Prescribe You a Cat. It’s time to revisit the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. Though it’s a mysteriously located clinic with an uncertain address, it can always be found by those who need it. And the clinic has proven time after time that a prescribed cat has the power to heal the emotional wounds of its patients. This charming sequel introduces a new lovable cast of healing cats, from Kotetsu, a four-month-old Bengal who unleashes his boundless energy by demolishing bed linen and curtains, to tenacious and curious Shasha, who doesn’t let her small size stop her from anything, and the most lovable, lazy Ms. Michiko, who is as soft and comforting as mochi. As characters from one chapter appear as side characters in the next, we follow a young woman who cannot help pushing away the man who loves her; a recently widowed grandfather whose grandson refuses to leave his room; the family of a young woman who struggle to understand each other, and an anxious man who works at a cat shelter seeking to show how the most difficult cats can be the most rewarding. This moving, magical novel of interconnected tales proves the strength of the unfathomable bond between cats and people.