Legendary American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has won eight Tonys, eight Grammys, six Olivier Awards, an Academy Award and a Pulitzer Prize. His brilliant songs and lyrics of genius have entertained us for more than half a century and his Broadway shows revolutionized musical theatre. Working together with Sondheim, editor Peter Gethers has selected for this volume lyrics from across Sondheim's career, drawn from shows including West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods. The result is a delightful pocket-sized treasury of the best of Sondheim

"Norton is clearly a charmer, and Gethers tells his story with contagious affection....Will warm the heart of any confirmed cat-lover."
THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
Before Peter Gethers met Norton, the publisher, screenwriter, and author was a confirmed cat-hater. Then everything changed. Peter opened his heart to the Scottish Fold kitten and their adventures to Paris, Fire Island, and in the subways of Manhattan took on the color of legend and mutual love. THE CAT WHO WENT TO PARIS proves that sometimes all it takes is paws and personality to change a life.

Peter was a confirmed loner and cat hater, until he was given a small, grey (and impeccably handsome) kitten with folded ears by his then girlfriend. The girlfriend went but Norton stayed - in fact, he and Peter became inseparable. Trotting along beside him down the street, having his own chair in restaurants or sitting on Peter's lap on plane journeys, Norton made his presence felt and Peter was a loner no more. But, after learning how to love his cat, would Peter now learn how to love another human too?

The final, poignant chapter in a trilogy of bestselling true stories about a floppy-eared Scottish Fold named Norton

Peter Gethers was a confirmed cat hater until the day he received a six-week-old kitten as a gift. Walking the streets of New York with Norton tucked into his pocket, Gethers began forming an intense attachment to his new pet. Before long Norton was flying with his owner on the Concorde to Europe, sipping milk in Parisian cafés, and eating custom-made pounce pizzas at Spago. Soon Gethers began to detail Norton’s adventures in print, and with The Cat Who Went to Paris and A Cat Abroad the duo made history as well as many, many friends around the world.

The Cat Who’ll Live Forever chronicles the latest in Norton’s astonishing adventures, celebrity encounters, and worldwide excursions, culminating in his heartwarming¯and heartbreaking¯final cross-country trip. The first half of this book will have you smiling and laughing as Norton changes the lives of the Italian owners of a thirteenth-century abbey in Sicily, attends movie premiers with Sir Anthony Hopkins in the chic Hamptons, and relaxes at the dog run in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park. But as Norton gets older his schedule slows down and he struggles with the aches and pains and physical inconveniences that go along with age, teaching his human the essentials of loving and caring and coping with illness. Ultimately Norton passes along to his owner the most valuable lessons of all¯how to deal with death and grief, how to live life on your own terms, and how to appreciate and savor the joyful times that come along while we’re here on earth.

The Cat Who’ll Live Forever is, on one level, a touching meditation on love and relationships and dealing with the pain of inevitable loss. Above all, it is a deeply moving and life-affirming tribute to a humble little animal who never let stardom go to his head and always understood the meaning of true friendship.


From the Hardcover edition.