I stumbled across Tom Cox the way many people discover new authors - I have been stalking following another author (G.M. Malliet, writer of cozy mysteries) and she retweeted something from him and I read it. I have cats and I feel that many people don't understand my relationship with them, so Tom's Twitter posts and his blog entries rather struck a chord with me. Ms. Malliet lived in England (according to her bio info) and her mysteries are set in Great Britain, so I kind of assumed that's how she would have heard of him. When I was a bookseller, I do remember selling his book on golf, but I'm not a golfer so I never looked at it closely and I didn't remember his name.
Tom seems to be doing something different with his writing. He's taking his career into his own hands a little bit - the promotion part of it, anyway. He created Twitter accounts for his cats, foremost among them being My Sad Cat. (I think it was @MySadCat that I came across originally, now that I think about it.) He has tweets indicating, 'My cat is sad because _". Usually it relates to the cat's deep, soul-searching eyes and the crass world's failure to live up to his expectations. @MySadCat has thousands of followers.
In his writing, Tom anthropomorphises his cats a little bit, for the sake of humor and to express the way they make him feel. But, for the most part I think that he is simply trying to understand them on their own level - their distinct personalities and the way they interact with each other. Through them we meet Tom's father who writes and talks in all caps, his mother and a few friends. But, mostly it's poignant memoir about a man who loves the outdoors and loves his cats and loves a genre of music that I can't quite put my finger on... 70's psychodelic rock? Obscure bands from just before he was born who were experimental and edgy?
If you enjoy animals, if you enjoy the outdoors, if you feel that cats were given a bad representation in The Secret Life of Pets, then I suggest you read this book, and follow @MySadCat on Twitter and read Tom's blog. He has several other books related to his cats as well.
Enjoy.