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 - 3rd Tuesday of the month-7:00-8:30 pm
Sundance Bookstore
1155 W. 4th Street
# 106-Keystone Square Shopping Center
For more information, please contact coordinator Kenn Rohrs at karohrs@charter.net or 775-849-9530.
Book Reviews - by Kenn Rohrs
2008 Schedule
Brushed By Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West by Frances Wood. Month-by-month the author introduces us to common birds of the west. We will discuss the chapter for the month of our meeting prior to discussing that month's book.
- January 15 - The Wind Masters: The Lives of North American Birds of Prey by Pete Dunne
- February 19 - Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson; and The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement by Mark Hamilton Lytle
- March 19 - Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds by Lyanda Lynn Haupt.
- We will select the books for September - December at this meeting.
- April 15 - The Beak of the Finch by Jonathon Weiner
- May 20 - The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
- No LAS Birds and Books Reading Group for June, July, and August.
- September 16 - Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina. Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood, August, and September chapters.
- October 21 - One Man's Owl by Bernd Heinrich. Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood, October chapter.
- We will select the books for January - May, 2009 at this meeting.
- November 18 - Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood, November chapter.
- December 16 - Private Lives of Garden Birds by Calvin Simonds. Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood, December chapter.
January 15
Brushed By Feathers-Introduction & January chapter, The Wind Masters: The Lives of North American Birds of Prey by Pete Dunne
Even people with little interest in birds will stop in their tracks at the sight of a hawk soaring overhead or a falcon perched on a window ledge. Birds of prey have an aura that few other creatures have. In the acclaimed Hawks in Flight, Pete Dunne showed what birds of prey look like. In The Wind Masters, he shows what it is like to be a bird of prey. He takes us inside the lives and minds of all thirty-four species of diurnal raptors found in North America--hawks, falcons, eagles, vultures, the osprey, and the harrier--and shows us how each bird sees the world, hunts its prey, finds and courts its mate, rears its young, grows up, grows old, and dies. Vividly written, and beautifully illustrated by David Sibley, The Wind Masters is a brilliant work of narrative natural history in the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's The Wind Birds and Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men.
PETE DUNNE is the author of seven books, including Hawks in Flight, The Wind Masters, Feather Quest, and Tales of a Low-Rent Birder. He is the vice president of the New Jersey Audubon Society and the director of its Cape May Bird Observatory and has written columns and articles for virtually every birding magazine and for the New York Times. David Allen Sibley, the author and illustrator of a best-selling series of birding guides, lives in Concord, Massachusetts.
February 19
Brushed By Feathers - February chapter, Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson
In this newly revised and illustrated edition of her world-famous, award-winning classic, Rachel Carson reveals the science and poetry of the sea from its primeval beginnings to the latest scientific probings of its tantalizing mysteries. Oceanography made great strides during the exciting decade of the fifties; new discoveries were made and Miss Carson describes the most important findings in the Appendix in a series of notes keyed to the original text.
The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement by Mark Hamilton Lytle
March 19
Brushed By Feathers - March chapter, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds is a collection of seventeen thoughtful essays on birds capture the sense of wonder and connection people have for these marvelous creatures. Naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, an ornithology teacher and researcher, examines the amazing talents and personalities of the most common of birds. She muses on the tarnished reputation of the starling, the sexed-up antics of male woodpeckers, and the mysterious behavior and startling population explosion of crows in her hometown. Through the eye and voice of this talented writer, birds provide a fascinating point of contact with the natural world at large. This book is nature writing at its best with compelling stories that hold readers' attention so closely they don't even realize how much they're learning.
April 15
Brushed By Feathers - April chapter The Beak of the Finch by Jonathon Weiner (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch.
In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.
May 20
Brushed By Feathers - May, June & July chapters - The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
Adultery, murder, and an arranged marriage are the meat in this exceptionally strong, classy period melodrama by the author of the acclaimed The Northern Lights (1987) and the short-story collection Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad (1989). This is a story about quiet country people who suddenly lose control of their lives; about the gap between the knowable, external world and our unknowable secret selves. Narrator Fabian Vas, born in 1891, lives in the remote settlement of Witless Bay in Newfoundland. His father, Orkney, is a semiliterate carpenter; his mother, Alaric, is well-educated, dissatisfied with her lot. Fabian is a talented bird artist who will eventually sell his drawings to magazines. The center of his life is Margaret Handle. When Fabian is 16, the strong-willed mail boat pilot's daughter initiates him into sex; it is always Margaret who calls the shots. Fabian's passivity will be his downfall. He goes along with his parents' bizarre scheme to marry him off to Cora Holly, a cousin they've never met, even though he's aware that Margaret considers it a betrayal. More flagrant is Alaric's betrayal of Orkney. While he's away on a bird-harvesting expedition, she begins a brazen affair with gloomy, antisocial Botho August, the lighthouse keeper. All hell breaks loose on Orkney's return. The astonished Fabian finds he has shot Botho dead with Margaret's revolver; the Vas family flees justice. Though the murder and flight have high-wattage intensity, it is Margaret's story that resonates the most, with the lyric force of a ballad. Norman is a superb storyteller who makes normality and nightmare equally convincing. We believe in the wrenching disorder precisely because the hitherto orderly rhythms have been as steady as the ticking of a clock.
Brushed By Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West by Frances Wood
Month-by-month the author introduces us to common birds of the west. We will discuss the chapter for the month of our meeting prior to discussing that month's book. Intriguing factual essays written for the casual nature lover and the experienced bird-watcher. Accompanied by vivid line drawings and quotes from noted naturalists, Brushed by Feathers is a muse for all.
- Month-by-month introductions to birds of the West-from backyard feeders to wetland, forest, and waterway inhabitants
- More than 150 western United States and Canadian birds, in locales from Kenai, Alaska, to southeastern Arizona
- Also includes folklore, native traditions, and insights into bird identification, migration, breeding, and other activities
Frances L. Wood is a writer, teacher, and naturalist. She writes a popular, award-winning newspaper column about birdwatching and has published more than 100 articles on birds and nature. She is a Master Birder with Seattle Audubon. For more than fifteen years she has taught classes on birdwatching, nature writing, and illustrated journaling. Ms. Wood lives on Whidbey Island, Washington.