by Susan Fox Rogers
Very good memoir! And with birds! Ms. Rogers seems to have gone through several minor obsessions in her life, from climbing to kayaking to birding, and this is an excellent story of how birding kept her whole in what might have been the slowdown years of her life. Or so it seemed to me.
It's written very honestly, and that makes it superb as a memoir. And it's written with a light touch, which makes it fun to pick up and hard to put down. She starts off telling of her on-again-off-again love affair with a birding guru, and while I couldn't help but hope for them to stay together, I wasn't nearly as tied up in that question as in whether or not she'd find her next bird.
I don't think I'll ever be as obsessed of birding as she, but as she points out, she herself will never be as obsessed as other people she knows. She's comfortable on a continuum and happy to see what she can and share the locations with anyone interested. It seems that a lot of birding enthusiasts are like that--generous and helpful to an excess. I've had help from strangers, both wanted and unwanted but usually the latter, I'm embarrassed to admit. Mostly I want to figure it out on my own. Which is not the "birder" way or even the best way, sometimes. But I've learned that it's the only way I really learn.
But I digress. This book is really enjoyable, bright and lovely and written like a charm. And, of course, full of birds.
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