The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature
by Jonathan Rosen
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Description
Today, forty-six million Americans are bird-watchers. The Life of the Skies is a genre-bending journey into the meaning of a pursuit born out of the tangled history of industrialization and nature longing. Jonathan Rosen set out on a quest not merely to see birds but to fathom their centrality--historical and literary, spiritual and scientific--to a culture torn between the desire both to conquer and to conserve. The Life of the Skies is at once a history of bird-watching in America, a show more meditation on changes in our views about killing animals, and a deeply personal book about the transforming qualities of a life spent observing the natural world. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I have become a birder (amateur) in retirement and joined a bird club so this book spoke to me. I loved his exploration of why this is an endlessly fascinating hobby at all levels. He also brought in the capacity for obsessiveness, something I avoid, and some history of bird classification.
Intelligence not smirky I'm smarter. Thoughtful. Not encyclopedic but not intended to be. An excellent insight into a complex thinker.
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Author Information
12+ Works 1,341 Members
Jonathan Rosen is the author of Eve's Apple and the culture editor of the Forward. He lives in New York City. (Bowker Author Biography)
Common Knowledge
- Dedication
- For the Albany flock—Anna, Jon, Isaac, Celia, and Ella—with love
- First words
- Everyone is a birdwatcher, but there are two kinds of birdwatchers: those who know what they are and those who haven't yet realized it.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)There is still time, before the light fades and there is no longer anything left to see.
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Statistics
- Members
- 181
- Popularity
- 180,846
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.94)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 2
