LAS Birds & Books Reading Group
Birds & Books is a flock of readers interested in books about nature, especially birds and birding. You are encouraged to attend a meeting to see if this group is for you.
Meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at
Sundance Bookstore
121 California Ave. Reno
Please note the new meeting time, which will be in effect for the April and May 2013 meetings. Birds and Books will not meet in June, July, or August.”
For more information, please contact coordinator Zena Lamp at zenanlamp@gmail.com or 775-762-3068.
2013 Schedule
- January 23, 2013 - Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben
- February 27, 2013 - The Orchard by Theresa Weier
- March 27, 2013 - Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by T.R. Birkhead
- April 24, 2013 - The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds, by Julie Zickefoose
- May 22, 2013 - What the Robin Knows, by Jon Young
January 23, 2013
Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we’ve waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We’ve created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back — on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change — fundamental change — is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
February 27, 2013
The Orchard by Theresa Weier
THE ORCHARD is the story of a street-smart city girl who must adapt to a new life on an apple farm after she falls in love with Adrian Curtis, the golden boy of a prominent local family whose lives and orchards seem to be cursed. Married after only three months, young Theresa finds life with Adrian on the farm far more difficult and dangerous than she expected. Rejected by her husband's family as an outsider, she slowly learns for herself about the isolated world of farming, pesticides, environmental destruction, and death, even as she falls more deeply in love with her husband, a man she at first hardly knew and the land that has been in his family for generations. She becomes a reluctant player in their attempt to keep the codling moth from destroying the orchard, but she and Adrian eventually come to know that their efforts will not only fail but will ultimately take an irreparable toll.
March 27, 2013
Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird, by T.R. Birkhead
Bird Sense is about how birds perceive the world. It is based on a lifetime of ornithological research and a conviction that we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird's head. We already know quite a lot about birds, thanks to centuries of painstaking research, and we are poised to make more discoveries. The birds described inhabit many parts of the globe, and some of them have lives and behaviors never before revealed to the average reader. You'll never look at a bird the same way after reading Tim Birkhead's latest book.
April 24, 2013
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds, by Julie Zickefoose
Personal, scholarly, beautifully illustrated in color, this is a compassionate look into the lives of birds. Zickefoose decribes her experiences rescuing and rehabilitating birds of various species and distinct personalities. She does not hesitiate to describe her own reponses to them and theirs to her. We do not see the the author and these birds in isolation but are allowed to experience them in the amazing natural world they both inhabit.
May 22, 2013 - What the Robin Knows, by Jon Young
By decoding the common language between humans and other species, Jon Young opens the door to a universe that overlaps modern life but is rarely experienced by humans. A lifelong birder, tracker and naturalist, Young is guided in his work by these basic premises: the robin, junco and other songbirds know everything about their environment. By tuning in to their vocalizations, we can acquire much of this wisdom for our own pleasure and benefit. The birds' companion calls and alarms are just as important as their songs. Birds are the sentries, and our key to understanding the world beyond our front door. The book comes with a handy collection of audio files to help identify various songs and alarms of common birds.