Monday, August 21, 2023

Best memoir of the year. And maybe best book.

Better Living Through Birding:

Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

by Christian Cooper

Absolutely great.  Lot of birding stuff, but if you refuse to be interested in birds there's a whole lot more--

Memoir. Family. History. Travels. Current Events. and Marvel Comics back in the day when Marvel Comics was a thing--hurray!

Listen to the audiobook if you can, because he starts each chapter with a minute of bird
song appropriate to the text.  I recognized very few of them (sadly!)

One thing I found hilarious--toward the end he goes to Alabama and is hoping to see a scissortail and a painted bunting.  Both of which I've seen hundreds of, so much that I find them a little mundane and seldom go to the to trouble to pull up my binoculars for.  (Which is stupid--they're both gorgeous)  But, on the other hand, there are lots and lots of northeastern warblers that he knows intimately. And I'm still waiting for that first look at!

No comments: