Today Grand Central, aka The Artist Formerly Known As Warner Books, announced that it had just paid $1.25 million for a book about a cat that lived in a library. The book, to be co-authored by a librarian and a dude who has pooped out a bunch of those Chicken Soup books, is meant to be a cat-lady answer to dog-person sleeper hit Marley and Me, which sold for $200,000 three years ago and has since sold almost two million copies. "You can't underestimate the market out there for people who love animals," said Karen Kosztolnyik, who will edit the book. Close, Karen! While there may be a dog-loving sucker born every minute, it's not so easy to shift kittycat pablum (um, unless maybe there's a mystery plot!) But seriously, crazy cat ladies are many things—single and living in unclean cat-hair apartments littered with kitty litter, etc—but they're not dumb. They're intimidatingly smart. That's why they're single. Well, that and the cats.

Iowa Library's Cat Has A Rich Second Life As A Biography [NYT]