If you?re one of those people who loves cats, can read wingdings and has actually turned in a resume using fonts like Old English Text or Ocra Alternate, then the Bookworm Beat has just the book for you.

?The Well-Lettered Cat? is written by California couple Porter Evans and designer husband Edward Ferro. It combines the couple?s seemingly uncombinable interests ? typography and cats.

This week The Bookworm Beat spoke with Ms Evans via telephone at her home in California. ??The Well-Lettered Cat? really grew out of the great loves my husband and I have shared thorough our marriage,? said Ms Evans. ?We have been married for 28 years. Our particular interests are in typography, and animals. Edward is an artist. His speciality is within the graphic design field. We also have a house full of cats.?

She has six cats, but she also includes in the book some of her beloved cats that have died. Cats featured in the book include Minnie the Agitator, Nicky the Anarchist, Lizzie, Reggie, Magic, Sophie and Merlin.

?I am an old English major from college,? Ms Evans said. ?I have a great love for the traditional classics and the Victorians. When we went about brainstorming about what we would write together, what we would enjoy focusing on was a given ? cats.?

Ms Evans and her husband hope the book will be the first of a series. They published it through their own company, Lines Rampant Press, after years of working for other people. ?We decided to do it ourselves, because when you work with other people, you are always challenged to meet what their vision is for the project. We decided that for our first book we wanted the great luxury of carrying out the ideas just the way we envisioned them.

?We were fortunate, because Edward and I have had a graphic design and publications business for about 20 years. We were quite used to both the joys and pitfalls of working on a project together and being married. I had written text and he had designed it before and so that was the smoothest part of the enterprise, but we were both on a steep learning curve and we continue to be.?

She said the idea for the book came not long after she turned 50 a couple of years ago.

?Turning 50 was a bit of a watershed year for me,? she said. ?It was one of those birthdays where you look at your life and say, ?how do I want to use the time that I have left?. I decided I wanted to use that time doing what I love.?

She said the secret to her long marriage to Mr. Ferro has been being able to laugh at the same things. ?To me, although there were many things I loved about Ed when I met him, the tie that has bound us is a shared sense of humour. Humour has gotten us through the hard times.?

She said that while they haven?t set the theme of their next book in concrete, they know it will be about cats.

?The cats we are writing about are the cats we have,? she said. ?As we were writing this, we continued to be inspired by them and all of their antics. Sometimes they inspired us to make changes. I never get tired of cats. I have a lot of patience for them. It is good for me that I have a very grounding area in my life. Right now we have six, but we recently lost one, our oldest girl. The cats in the book are some that we had in the past, who lived long lives who are now gone.? Ms Evans said that working on the book had been a delight and she hoped that readers would also enjoy it.

?It offers the twin delight of reassurance and discovery,? she said. ?That is the true gift of literature, whether it is a gift book like this one or a big novel. People read it and feel reassurance. They might say ?that it is just what my cats do?.?

She said the book is also visually stimulating. It offers a new way to look at both cats and letters of the alphabet.

?People might never have thought of that play on words, or making the letter look like that, so you are bringing something fresh to them,? she said. ?That is what I look for in books as a reader, that sense that I am sharing an experience with the author.?

Ms Evans and her husband have not been to Bermuda yet, but they did meet two Bermudians a couple of years ago.

?We were in London last year at the Chelsea Flower Show,? said Ms Evans. ?We went to a West End theatre production. We loved London, but one thing that struck me was that people don?t engage in idle chatter with strangers very much.

?At the theatre I sat next to these women. I was struck by how friendly these women were. Then I had to laugh when I found out they were from Bermuda. I was hearing their accents and thinking they were Londoners.?

?The Well-Letter Cat? is available online at www.linesrampantpress.com for $19.95 .