Themis-Athena's Garden of Books

I love this book.  It's Marsh at her best; linguistically, in terms of setting and characters ...and it has a lot of things to say about people, society, and social conventions; not to mention that given the time of its publication, it's a remarkably frank look at some ugly truths which at that particular time most people would rather not have faced up to.

Oh, and it features cats, of course -- and they (well, one of them) even plays a pivotal part.