2008 Dewey Decimal Project: 598.07234 W

[rsadelle]

October's book was Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding by Scott Weidensaul. The book is, as it says, a history of American Birding. Since it's over three hundred pages long, I really have to wonder what a longwinded history of American birding would look like.

The book is an interesting survey of American birding, including the ways in which birding and ornithology have intersected and separated and intersected again over the years. Weidensaul weaves in his own birding experiences as jumping off points for the history, which works instead of being annoying, which it could easily be. I particularly appreciated his skill in choosing entertaining anecdotes and humorous quotes:

One woman wrote to say she was so unhappy because the cats in her neighborhood killed birds. We were going to write back and suggest that she collect the murderous felines and read the Audubon circular to them; but we restrained ourselves and advised her to feed the cats. (Elliott Coues, quoted on page 143)

The introduction to every volume carried the same put-up-or-shut-up message:

The reader is reminded again that this is a cooperative work; if he fails to find in these volumes anything that he knows about the birds, he can blame himself for not having sent the information to

--The Author

(Cleveland Bent, quoted on page 182)

He also does a very nice job of including the contributions of women from times before women started being included in academic and other ventures outside of childbearing.

The book ends on a message of conservation and Weidensaul's affirmation of the birding for the enjoyment of watching birds and understanding of their ways school of thought over the obsessive checking off of lists school of thought.

Overall, it was an interesting book. Some of you might enjoy it; for archivecats, this is upgraded to highly recommended.