Product Description
Captures the unique style of fashion maverick Iris Apfel and her exuberantly idiosyncratic personal chic.With remarkable panache and discernment, Iris Apfel combines styles, colors, textures, and patterns without regard to period, provenance, or aesthetic conventions. She is a unique style icon.

Over ninety sumptuous color plates, photographed by Eric Boman, show off a selection of Apfel's extraordinary outfits on wittily posed mannequins, some sporting her trademark outsized spectacles. The originality of her style is typically revealed in her mixing of Dior haute couture with flea-market finds, Dolce & Gabbana lizard trousers with nineteenth-century ecclesiastical vestments, pink Lanvin worn with ropes of Navajo turquoise. Apfel's eclectic pieces might come from a Parisian couture house, an American thrift shop, or a North African souk, or they may have been made to her own design in a tiny studio.

Detailed captions describe every aspect of the outfits, including names and dates of designers, plus full information on fabrics and accessories. A selection of audacious accessories also comes under the spotlight: a giant necklace made of bear claws, a turn-of-the-century Indian horse ornament worn as a necklace, a parrot's-head brooch in colored glass and rhinestones.

The book includes an introduction by Harold Koda, director of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and an essay by Apfel herself, describing her lifelong love affair with style and illustrated with vintage photographs from her personal collection. 169 photographs and illustrations, 149 in color ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!!!
This book is so beautifully prepared, executed,and full of rich color combinations, fashion design ideas and inspiration on so many levels.I have it out and am constantly picking it up just to look at it.It's a wonderful book;I don't see how it could do other than delight.

Essential guide to style
This is the sort of book that does not do well with online bookstores. It is the sort of book you need to flick through rather than just see a cover picture and read a blurb before buying. If you are familiar with Iris Apfel you will know exactly what to expect.But for anyone else this book needs to be browsed in a bookshop to discover the delights within it. The book is almost all photographs. They are excellent clear records of Iris Apfel's wardrobe and jewellery.
Any aspiring fashion or jewellery designer will learn a lot from the photographs. The clothes are styled on mannequins and put together how Iris would have worn them. This makes it an excellent reference book for anyone who wants to learn about fashion styling. This book is also an essential reference guide for anyone who wants to stand out from the pack and make a statement with their fashion. All the outfits are truly timeless, and it is the way that they are put together which makes them stand out rather than the cost or designer label. This means that this book is truly democratic; anyone can take away something from these photos to add style to their own wardrobe.

Rare Bird of Fashion Book review
After seeing the Iris Apfel exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, I had to have the book as a keepsake. The museum charged $65.00 and had to order, then ship it. This book on Amazon was reasonably priced for a delightful coffeetable book. Although it didn't contain all the items as displayed in the exhibit, it contained an amusing early history of Iris Apfel and her husband. Another friend who saw the exhibit loved the book as a gift, too!

Inspirational designs
There is a lot of food for thought in these photos for any person interested in fashion design.

First Fashion Book
This is the first book about fashion that I've purchased.I ordered it after hearing an interview with Mrs. Apfel on NPR.She sounded like a hoot in the interview so I thought I'd give it a try.The book is loaded with full page photos of manequins dressed in the outfits she put together over the years.What a celebration they are!High fashion with, I think, a wild Bohemian streak.Her use of clothing is an expression of joy.For me it was more about human spirit than fashion. ... Read more

Product Description
This book offers a guide to some of the rarest birds in existence, with maps that show where to find them. Focusing on fifty captivating stories of the very rare, it describes remarkable discoveries of species not seen for centuries and brought back from the brink of extinction, successes like the Seychelles Magpie-Robin and the California Condor. The book is organized around key groups of species, with each species the subject of its own mini-chapter; we learn about the five most amazing tales of island endemics, the five most bizarre cases of a bird's becoming threatened, and other astonishing tales of bird life.

Atlas of Rare Birds is an accessible, readable, and visually appealing take on the serious subject of threatened birds and possible extinctions—a timely topic because of increasing concerns about climate change and habitat destruction. The atlas format—featuring 200 color photographs and 61 color maps—shows the global nature of the problem and brings together the many strands of the concerted bird conservation effort taking place on every continent.

Atlas of Rare Birds is published in association with BirdLife International, the world's largest global alliance of bird conservation organizations. ... Read more

Product Description
Describes in verse such unusual birds as the shuttercluck, the milkbottle midge, the waterglass goose, and the highbutton bobolink. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Wonderful Children's Book
Each page of this wonderful children's book is dedicated to a separate bird, but what birds they are!
You will meet the salt-shaker Shrike, the Ice-Cream-Cone-Coot, the Waterglass-Goose, the High-Button-Boblinks,
and many others. The drawings are lovely, and the language is fun and whimsical. Truly a joy.

The Ice Cream Cone Coot and Other Rare Birds
Brilliant, funny, interesting book!One of my very favorities from childhood, and now my children love it.Highly recommend.Will stimulate your children's imaginations!

Funniest Children's Book
I like this book because of the Ice Cream Cone Coot and all of the other funny birds.My grandmom has a copy of this book and we read it whenever we come to her house.It was my mom's book when she was a little girl.And now it's my grandmom's book.

That's all.

My favorite children's book...
I read this book when I was seven years old.At the time it was unlike anything I had ever read before.It has a touch of whimsy, magic and humor.The words rhyme and the illustrations are well done, which makes it a fun read.Best of all is the last page which still, for some reason, makes me say, "Awww.That's neat."

Very Unique
I bought this book at a library booksale last Saturday.What a find and a steal!!I bought the book because of its illustrations at first.When I first opened the book I was amazed to see how awesome the verses were too!They are just so funny and intelligent!You don't even need to see the pictures of these crazy birds to appreciate the verse written about them. I especially loved the "Glove Dove" near the end of the book.It reminded me of the Menacing Flying Glove in the movie "Yellow Submarine."I am a big fan of the Beatles and this book was very trippy, just like something they would create.These birds would fit right in with the Blue Meanies in Pepperland!I am hoping to become a teacher in the future and this would be an excellent book to include in a classroom.You could read the book and then have the kids make up their own bird from everyday household objects and write a poem about it!!Its just an all around awesome book, I wish I had seen it when I was little!! ... Read more

Product Description
This captivating book pays homage to the powerful sense of connection that we earthbound creatures have for those that soar. Lyanda Lynn Haupt, an ornithological researcher and birding teacher, beautifully describes the wide-eyed wonder found observing birds. She muses on the much-tarnished reputation of the starling, the sexed-up behavior of male woodpeckers that drives homeowners crazy, and the population explosion of crows in Northwest urban neighborhoods. This notable debut by a talented writer reveals a deft touch, sly humor, and an engaging ability to share her bountiful knowledge of things ornithological. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Birding Delights
In the final chapter of this sincere work, Lyanda Lynn Haupt slips in a quotation from Stephen Kellert that suggests her own aim in writing: "People will need to rekindle their capacity for experiencing wonder, inspiration, and joy from contact with the natural world". Such delighted sentiment permeates the work as a whole. Haupt celebrates the varied reactions she and her friends and family have to a set of birds which are not the celebrities of the avian world: starlings, crows, cormorants. Her vignettes combine her knowledge of birds, of the birdwatching community, and her personal experiences. Her first chapter ends by saying, "Birds will give you a window, if you allow them", and this book looks at the moment when the shutters swing open.

Her emphasis on human reaction to birds plays to her strengths as a writer. Some of her finest lines encapsulate the meaning of a visual impression while partially eliding the image itself: she writes of the snowy owl, after referring to the way every feature of its design is taken to an extreme (e.g., "impossibly sharp talons"), "They are all we can imagine them to be." Haupt's power and interest is less in physical description (although there are some vividly amusing analogies: the "scrunched" face of a Vaux's Swift makes the species "a little avian Pekinese"). Instead, she concentrates on the kinds of emotion and thought which any individual bird encounter can touch off for a watcher.

The limits of human understanding-and the charms of those limits-plays into a larger theme of the book. Haupt declares her intent to steer a course between the Scylla of scientific arcana and cold observation and the Charybdis of "response-ists" who attempt to experience and enjoy a world untainted by human names and knowledge. At times she can drift to one side or the other-either in the form of occasionally rote descriptions of nesting habits or overly fanciful evocations of fairies-and the relative success of the passages where the two impulses are balanced prove her own point. She conveys her delight in the way the Varied Thrush produces its distinct song as gracefully as she does her experience of the song itself.

Ultimately, this book depends on an audience looking to evoke a joy previously experienced, to explore a familiar enchantment and comprehend it better. Haupt, as one who has worked to induce that joy in others, has an intelligent grasp of its workings and vagaries. Her book warmly invites others to share in her insights and, through them, re-experience their own delights.

Enchanting thoughts on another world
Human beings often think of the human world as the central point from which all earthly existence radiates, with birds and other animals mere background. Lyanda Lynn Haupt sweeps the reader effortlessly into another world-- the world of birds. By bringing the daily habits, troubles and foibles of birds of the Pacific Northwest to light, and painting these birds in refreshing verbal watercolors, the author succeeds in showing humans that the bird world is not a backdrop to human existence but a whole other sphere of existence unto itself. She muses about the supernatural qualities of the hermit thrush's song, the humorous (by human standards) mating dance of the blue grouse, the hyperactivity of the missile-like swift, even the dual nature of the lives of migratory birds who can be at home in two radically different places in the span of one year. Read this book and be drawn into a separate world of avian wonder!

Extraordinary!
As an amateur birder, I will never look at birds (ordinary and otherwise) in the same way again. Wonderfully written.Can't wait for the next one.
I checked this book out of the library - but will be purchasing it for myself and my darling daughter who got me into birding.

enchanting!
As someone who enjoys watching and identifying birds, this book naturally caught my interest.Once reading, I couldn't wait to get to the next essay!The book gives more meaning to my encounters with ALL birds.And just when one might be tempted to say or think "It's only a silly Starling (or Crow, or Sparrow, etc.)," amazing and wondrously described details about these birds' history, biology, taxonomy,behavior, or physiology will not only prompt one to seek out ordinary birds, but experience them on a different level.It has been similar to studying music, and subsequently gaining an appreciation for it that only those who "know" can understand. It's funny, incredibly informative, and a perfect read for anyone interested in the feathered creatures that are right out in the open with us every day.Enthusiastically recommended! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

movie created from book
received very quickly-was not too thrilled with the book-did not keep my attention as I would have liked.

wonderful book!
Just finished "rare birds"....absolutely beautiful dialog and characters.....better than the movie which was also great.

Closest Novel-to-Film Adaptation Ever
I had to scour a bit to locate the source novel that the amazing film was based on - but it was worth every penny. Just an astounding conversion of the book into the film's screenplay - incredible.

Having recently reviewed the fantasy film "City Of Ember", and discovering the frothing rabid mob of fans who decry and crucify the film version due primarily to their adolescent view that movies 'must' be exactly like the novel it's based on; I was pleasantly surprised at how much content was included into the 'Rare Birds' adaptation with WIlliam Hurt, Molly Parker and Andy Jones.

Riche's words (nearly verbatim), inflection, moods, mannerisms, and overall character depth can all be found in the film.

Apologies for going on about the celluloid - since this review is supposed to be about the novel. But you'll find that one is nearly the same as the other = hilarious and richly fantastic.

I will say that as much as the filmmakers were able to put into the movie adaptation - the novel gives you so much more. In order to pare down the number of characters and sharpen the story, many of the motivations and interwoven history is not delved into or discussed. Missing most prominently is Dave's so-called 'best friend' and their relationship as it revolves around the swinging fortunes of The Auk, the wheelchair-bound 'world's leading ornithologist' - Dr. Hans Speidel, and the ever-fragmenting marriage to his rising-star-cable-show-talking-head of a wife.

The novel also ends somewhat differently than the film - as Dave is seen as triumphant and reborn in the movie. No spoilers - but he's infinitely more somber and reflective about the year within which the events Rare Birds takes place. (in the film it's compressed into a month or so)

If you're a fan of the film, as I was introduced to Dave & Co, you'll be so much more satisfied with the novel. My soul ached for "more" when the movie ends and the novel helped fill the void. Conversely, if you read the novel, please check out the film - it adds a visual richness that the novel, no matter how well written, cannot capture; especially when seen thru the stunning radiance that is Molly Parker and the stark pale beauty of the Newfoundland coast.

Quirky good fun
Read the book, but especially see the movie.This is what a story should be.It's just a fun story that's enjoyable.Remember, always have a plan B.

Quirky, Newfie Birds: You've Got To Love Them
This book is delightful! Well written, with marvelous characters and a colorful background, it's like literary chocolate. Anyone who has had the priviledge of visiting Newfoundland, and meeting its friendly--but different--people will especially find this a treat. If you're tired of the daily grind, curl up with this one and prepare to enjoy your read. ... Read more

Product Description
For sixteen years, author and photographer William Burt has been on an uncommon mission. Every spring and summer since 1984, he has been in pursuit of the toughest of subjects:twenty of the least known, almost mythically elusive North American birds. Burt spent weeks in the field at a time, employing his own hand-built equipment and often revisiting sites, year after year in certain cases, to get the pictures he wanted. The end result is this collection of stunning photographs of these birds in the wild and the engaging stories behind capturing the images. This book contains over fifty remarkable photographs of these camera-shy birds. Additionally, it contains an appendix of thumbnail sketches about each of the birds featured in the book:where they can be found, their markings, and other unique characteristics. Rare and elusive Birds of North America is a wonderful addition to the libraries of serious and armchair birders alike.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not only pictures of elusive birds, but an adventure to boot
Taking picture of the most rare and shy birds in North America is not an easy tasking, not even for an avid birder and expert in the field. Well, William Burt is an expert in the field, and it took him over 10 years of hard work to research, track down, and photograph America's most elusive birds. Burt has not only delivered a full package of top quality photographs, but he has written an excellent story of his episodes of wandering through endless praries and dark swamps to find these birds. For anyone who loves birds, or loves an adventure, this book is a must.

Great gift for birders
I bought this book as a gift for birders, and they really loved it. It consists of photographs taken of some of the most elusive birds in North America. ... Read more

Product Description
Rare Birds, the first monograph by Amanda de Cadenet, is a ten-year retrospective documenting the provocative cast of characters she has encountered through the course of her life and travels. These intimate images, published here for the first time, present us with a disarming array of personalities. Defying superficial interpretation and representation, Rare Birds humanizes our pop culture idols, placing them alongside equally compelling people from everyday life. Be it her daughter Atlanta, her boyfriend Nick, friends Keanu Reeves, Tobey Macguire, Benicio del Toro, Drew Barrymore, Orlando Bloom, Mischa Barton, Amber Valletta, Sophie Dahl, Amanda Peet, Dave Gahan, Jenny Saville, Beck, Sean Lennon, Kings of Leon, The Strokes, The Vines, Adam Green of The Moldy Peaches, and Brody Dalle of The Distillers, or the odd and unusual people she encounters on the street, Amanda de Cadenet’s photographs capture a subtle, ambiguous, and unconventional beauty. Amanda de Cadenet began her eclectic career in London at age fourteen as the host of a successful talk show, and later relocated to Los Angeles to raise her daughter and pursue acting. After starring in several films it became apparent that life behind the camera was what motivated de Cadenet. She promptly began to capture the cast of characters surrounding her with a secondhand Leica M6, and a new career began to take shape. Today, de Cadenet’s portraits and fashion images appear in such publications as Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, i-D, Allure, Spin, and Rolling Stone. Currently residing in New York with her daughter and boyfriend, she is working on directing her first film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

unique book
Lots of celebs in this one.Looks like deCadenet has compiled photos from the 80's to today.Unique and very personal and intimate feeling.

Touching
Rare Birds is basically a collection of photos that look like they should be taped up on the walls of a teenagers bedroom, if that teenager was the coolest girl at some hip downtown New York private school. This is a good thing. The book is a nice slice of popular culture in the early aughts (almost all the photos are of celebrities like Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore, Nick Valensi and the other Stroke boys) but the photos are also sweet and intimate. There is real affection between subject and photographer. It is a look into what Amanda De Cadanet's life might look like in its most idealized form. Its true that Rare Birds isn't the most brilliant or original book of photography out there, but clearly that wasn't De Cadenet's goal. It seems more like she wanted to show the photos and say "here I am. Share with me." And at that she does a beautiful job.

Cute photo album type book.
Amanda De Cadenet's Rare Birds offers glimpses into the lives of those faces we see so often in tabloids or on TV, with one major difference -- in this book, we see these celebrities through the eyes of someone who is close to them, and unenhanced by the media. Yet we also see something about the woman behind the camera, for many of the photographs seem light-hearted and silly, as if taken by a bored girl fiddling around with her camera one rainy day. Through her photographs, De Cadenet comes off as a simple girl who likes taking pictures of simple-girl things - friends, boyfriends, flowers, shoes, and of course, hot guys.

This book seems to be De Cadenet's attempt to put a personality to the celebrities that clutter its pages. Her efforts to do so can be seen by the book's arrangement (famous faces alongside unknown ones) as well as its index (naming all subjects on a first-name-only basis -- a familiar "Orlando" rather than "Orlando Bloom, People Magazine's Sexiest Bachelor 4 years in a row"). The book achieves its goal, partially at least. Yet even if you don't recognize all the celebrities in the book, you can still pretty much tell that they're famous -- even stripped down and "raw", they are still too glamorous to seem like simpletons.

As for the celebrities -- indie music scenesters will instantly be familiar with many faces - The Strokes make at least a dozen appearances (no doubt due to De Cadenet's status as the girlfriend of their lead guitarist), as well as The Vines, Adam Green, Matt Followill (Kings of Leon), Beck, and Sean Lennon -- just to name a few. Those unfamiliar with such names may still recognize other tabloid faces, including Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves (also a De Cadenet ex), Orlando Bloom, Tobey Maguire, and Amber Valetta.

I Could Have Taken Better Pictures!
You know, I was real exited about "Rare Birds" in the beginning, and only because I am deeply in love with and very passionate about Keanu Reeves. I knew there were going to be photos of him in this book, and I also expected to see a whole section on him, from what I've read about in other descriptions of the book. So imagine my surprise when I found the book in a local bookstore and flipped through the pages...

First of all, let me say that I only recognized 4 people (before reading the photo credits) in this book...Keanu Reeves, Tobey Maguire, Benicio del Toro, and Sean Lennon. And let me also say that the ONLY good photos in the whole book are ofKeanu Reeves; in one, he is laying in bed, gazing into the camera with the sun shining on his hair. It is perfection...it is Heaven-sent, and he looks like an angel. In the other, he is holding his motorcycle helmet, shyly looking down. Both photos are clear and professional looking. I wish I could say the same for the rest of thebook.

For the most part, the so-called "celebrities" (maybe in their minds, anyway) look like has-been Hollywood trash, with the exception of the aforementioned four people. Most of the pics look as if they had been taken with a cheapie disposable camera, and most of the subjects (except Keanu) look like something the cat drug in after a long night of partying. They all look like hell, and if it hadn't been for the incomplete photo credits in the back of the book (first names only,) I'd have never recognizedRose McGowan. Even Tobey and Benicio look like they just got out of bed, but I have to say that those shots are fairly decent. The rest, however, just plain suck. Even the photos ofMs. DeCadenet's daughter, Atlanta, could (and should) have been done with much more care. There's a photo of a pair of sneakers, some roses, and a marquee of a theatre where "The Matrix" was playing, and which has Keanu's name on top of the title; the non-human subjects were very amateurish.

Marc Jacobs and Sophie Dhal have nothing interesting to say in the book. It would have been so much nicer if there were captions under the photos saying who the subject was, and when and under what circumstances the photo was taken. I may have cared more about the subjects (and the book itself) had that been done. It is very obvious that Ms. DeCadenet still has a great deal of affection for Keanu, with whom she once had a long relationship; she thanks him twice in the acknowledgements, and there are more photos of him (4 in all) than there are of anyone else in the book, including her daughter. If she had put as much care and effort into the rest of the pics as she did with Keanu's,it would be a truly glorious book. I'm glad I got to see it before I ordered it (which I won't be doing, by the way,) because I would have wasted a LOT of money.

celebrity hacking at a real art-form
There is nothing redeeming about Ms. Cadenet's photography, except as a document of the people she slept with. and its an impressive litany of boy stars that she has serviced...unfortunately, the camera skills she utilizes are not as impressive as her personal offerings....by a long shot. taking the lead paved by Hiromix and Terry Richardson, the premise behind her attempts, are the 'snapshot' window into her volatile, star powered life. but most of these badly lit, movie star and rock star'moments' feel staged, superficial and lacking the unseen touches and bold reality that carved out a niche for Hiromix and Terry.

I don't believe Amanda ever achieved a celebrity status indepedent of the boy stars she was servicing, and for the most part they all seem aware and weary of the photographer's presence. time to go home Amanda. ... Read more

Product Description
Part naturalist detective story, part environmental inquiry, this vibrant narrative celebrates the fascinating world of an endangered seabird that depends on the contested old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest for its survival 'This chunky little seabird stole my heart.' So confesses Maria Mudd Ruth, a veteran nature writer perfectly happy to be a generalist before getting swept up in the strange story of the marbled murrelet. This curiosity of nature, who flies like a little brown bullet at up to 100 miles an hour and lives most of its life offshore, is seen around land only during breeding season, when the female lays a single egg high on a mossy tree limb in the ancient coastal forest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A rare bird who managed to keep its nesting place undetected for nearly two centuries
If you haven't heard of the marbled murrelet, even if you're an avid birder, don't be surprised: it's a rare bird who managed to keep its nesting place undetected for nearly two centuries: one explored in depth in Rare Bird: Pursuing The Mystery Of The Marbled Murrelet. Like the more famous ivory-billed woodpecker, the marbled murrelet is an elusive bird which has chosen exclusively a limited territory depleted trough logging. Though not on the edge of extinction, the many human threats to its habitat are reducing its numbers, and naturalist author Maria Mudd Ruth here explores these influences - and her discoveries about an amazing bird.

A Page Turner!
This is a wonderful book! An interesting read for both the avid bird watcher or the casual observer. I loved this book!

Coaxing a non-birder into the old growth forest
What is remarkable about Rare Bird is how accessible and interesting it is for a non-scientist and non-birder. Maria Ruth Mudd's ability to draw the reader close to this fascinating, endangered and shy sea bird that nests in old growth forests comes in part from her own outsider perspective-she calls herself an "accidental naturalist"-as well as her lively explanations detailing how scientists began to learn about and understand this odd creature.

From rich and poetic descriptions of old growth forests where this bird nests, to humorous and arduous accounts of tagging along with ornithologists, field biologists, and other tireless birders attempting to study the marbled murrelet, Ruth Mudd brings the reader into a world seldom even contemplated by most. She also demonstrates-- through historical record, numerous anecdotes detailing her own growing curiosity, and descriptions of the fascinating fieldwork--just how difficult studying this bird is, as well as how crucial the marbled murrelet researchers are to this bird's survival.As much as this book is a natural history, it is a song of appreciation to the researchers who have dedicated their lives to understanding and fighting for endangered species in general, and this bird in particular.

By the end of the book, I cared about this strange-looking auk, I wanted to hug the researchers that work to document the impact of polluted waters and clear-cutting on this bird's survival, and I better understood the plight of one endangered bird in a world hungry for old growth trees and land.

Great Bird, Great Book!
I have had the pleasure of reading Maria Mudd Ruth's most recent book,Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet. This book is the result of years of research by the author, which included culling facts from many scientific papers and journals,interviewing numerous biologists and ornithologists,visiting museums,attending seabird conferences and participating in data collection herself.The result is a lively,intelligent,thoughtful,funny and easily readable tale of a most unusual bird,and the folks who have found it fascinating. The author's enthusiasm for this bird is evident in her personal narration. This is no dry scientific paper.We, as readers, are amazed by the number of people who over so many yearshave dedicated their lives to studying this elusive creature,and the lengths they go to to observe and record it's behavior.We are also moved as we consider how difficult is the mission of maintaining the delicate balance of nature and industry in our increasingly complex world.Ruth has given us a gift in this detailed account of a funny ,fat, little bird and the stir it has caused, while trying to avoid attention altogether.It's a must read for those concered with protecting threatened and endangered species, and for those of us who enjoy a story well told. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Fun Stories Told With Humor
This was a fast & enjoyable read riddled with insights and facts told in a witty point of view.The author is easy to like with her down-to-earth prose & her obvious love for the natural world. I especially enjoyed her account of raising Chimney Swift babies. What was a little distracting was that a good portion of the birds she talks about live on the West Coast, so for an East Coast reader I felt a little left out since many of these birds like the Steller's Jay & the Spotted Owl are not birds I will see unless I travel.Although this was told from a first person narrative, it still felt a little text bookish to me.I enjoyed Suzie Gilbert's "Flyaway" better since it felt more personal & tender hearted.

excellent encounters
i may be biased because i live in the northwest and the majority of the bird encounters happen in close proximity to my backyard.this book offers storybook tales of encounters with birds (grouse, cormorants, etc) with earnest, factual, and knowing detail.great!

A true gem
What a wondrous book!My husband loved it, and passed it on to me, even though I'm not a birder as he is.Rare Encounters is a seamless blend of biology, memoir, humor, and truly elegant writing, a book that awakens and deepens your relationship to the natural world (not just birds!) in everyday life.I bought several copies to keep on hand as gifts.This is a book to keep on your bedside table, to read and re-read.

It coulda been a contender...
This book is formatted in a way that each chapter focuses on one North American bird species. The first several chapters are written in a easy, personal memoir style, about the author's experiences with the featured bird. Included were also interesting scientific facts about the featured birds. The book was great while the story was written in this vane. These chapters were heartwarming, as well as, educational. It started as one of those books you start to think is going to be fabulous and one you'll always cherish.

Halfway through the chapters started to read more and more like a scientific textbook of ornithology. With hardly any personal experiences in these chapters it just lacked the easy & heartwarming style that the previous chapters did. It quickly disappointed me written in this style.

By the last few chapters the author picked up where she left off in the first chapters. By this time I was too bored to really be too excited about this book, again. The book ended on a happy and fun note. These last chapters were educational and personable too, tho, a bit too late for me.

Overall, a 3 star read for me.

Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds
A slim volume of essays on the author's experiences with various common bird species.

Personable writing and a surprising amount of information, some of which is saddening (people lynch owls??) but most of which is intriguing and perhaps of more interest to readers, at least in North America, because it focuses on common species that many people encounter regularly. The essays are generally personal memoirs, and the type and amount of information on the birds varies -- this isn't a scientific study or a guide to identification but an engaging nature writing read. ... Read more

Product Description
What does a writer do when he’s got a family that includes a blacklisted member of the Hollywood Ten, the brains behind Tony the Tiger and the Marlboro Man, a trio of gay puppeteers, the world’s leading birdwatcher, sixties hippies, a Dutch stowaway who served in an all-black regiment during the American Civil War, a mother of unusual compassion and understanding, and a convicted murderer? He tells their stories and secrets, illuminating 150 years of American life along the way.

Dan Bessie begins the journey through his family history with his great-grandfather in the cargo hold of a ship bound for New York on the storm-tossed Atlantic. What follows are stories of his grandfather’s various entrepreneurial schemes (including a folding butter box business), a grandmother who was voted “New York’s Prettiest Shop Girl” (and who resisted the recruitment efforts of various city madams), and his uncle Harry’s Turnabout Theater in Los Angeles (a renowned puppet theater drawing patrons as diverse as Shirley Temple, Ray Bradbury, and Albert Einstein).

Through inherited journals and literary effects, Bessie comes to a new understanding of his father, Alvah. An actor and writer, he fought in the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. When he returned to the States, he headed to the Warner backlots to begin a screenwriting career. But as congress began investigating radicals in the film industry, Alvah was blacklisted for his Communist sympathies and was soon sent to jail as one of the Hollywood Ten.

His grandmother’s cousin, Sidney Lenz, wrote Lenz on Bridge, a classic guide to the game of contract bridge. Bessie describes what was billed as the Bridge Battle of the Century, a 1931 match between Lenz and an upstart opponent that was covered by journalists from all over the world. Bessie’s brother-in-law Wes Wilson designed rock and roll posters for the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco during the 1960s, living a counterculture existence vastly different from the bridge-mad Depression Era.

Cousin Michael was heir to the compulsive storytelling characterizing many of the Bessies. He found his niche in publishing, co-founding the Atheneum Press and shaping books by people such as Anwar Sadat, Edward Albee, and Aldous Huxley. With an equally impressive career, Uncle Leo built the country’s fifth largest advertising agency. Working 364 days a year, he lived for the passion of putting words and images together. A passion of a different sort led cousin Phoebe Snetsinger to travel from Webster Groves, Missouri, to the far corners of Africa and Asia. The world’s leading birder, she sighted 8,400 different birds—nearly 85 percent of the species known to exist.

An extraordinary strain of creativity runs through the Bessie and Burnett clans, and Rare Birds celebrates the colorful diversity of a remarkable and accomplished family. While their choices and professions run the gamut of the American experience in the twentieth century, the history of the nation can be traced in these people’s lives. Bessie’s passionate birds of a feather gather to sing their unique song across decades and generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A Rare Book
"Rare Birds, An American Family" by Dan Bessie (University Press of Kentucky, 2001),gives an extremely personal look at one person's family history. Yet it's also a peek into just about everyone's family history, applied with a widely-sweeping paintbrush.

And it is a piece of art. Dan Bessie manages to take each family member - from ancestors he never met but whom who he heard all the stories about, to candid accounts of his closest relations - and give telling, engaging, entertaining, and poignant accounts of each of their lives. Every story Dan tells gives the reader an intimate snapshot of a real human life. Not all the folks are heroes but neither are they all villains. Somehow, he manages to engage their true humanity in all its beauty and warts.

"Rare Birds" shows that families are made up of characters, so many characters as different, and the same, as the fabrics in a well-worn, comfortable, and somehow exciting tapestry that's been handed down generation after generation after generation . . . and still loved with each and every touch of another human experience.

Students of human nature, genealogists, biography lovers, and anyone who simply has a thing for a good character study will enjoy "Rare Birds." Dan Bessie is the consummate storyteller.


-- Linda Alexander, author, "Reluctant Witness: Robert Taylor, Hollywood, & Communism"

What a family!
After reading "Rare Birds" by Dan Bessie I thought, "What a family!".Every family has a few characters or maybe a semi-famous person.But, in "Rare Birds" I was totally fascinated by the wide range of interesting and famous family members.I especially liked the chapters on his Uncle Harry Burnett and the Turnabout Theatre.The book is written in a relaxed style that makes you feel like you're having a conversation with the author.It made me want to search out my own family tree, shake it and see who falls out. Fascinating and enjoyable book!

A Fascinating Family
This is a truly heartfelt look into a talented, creative and outspoken family.From the wild west days to the Spanish Civil War, Mr. Bessie examines and tells the tales of his family with warmth and wit.These are people who lived life, not coasted through it.The exhaustive research is evident yet the author honestly points out when the trail goes cold and he is left with only oral history or speculation.Above all, he treats each life with respect and love even when he doesn't wholly approve. Not just a truly entertaining read, it prompts all of us to really get to know our own family members, rare or otherwise, in a meaningful way before we find it's too late.

Rare Birds
Great book. Not only well written but written with the insight of a mature, intelligent sensitive human being. Great insight into the human condition. The author comes from a unusally talented and creative family and as this book demonstrates is as creative as any of them. Telling us the story of his familygives us alot information about the political climate in the USA and its effect on individual citizens. Extremly interesting and varied Family members from the world's must prolific bird watcher to a Leftist screen writer who fought with the Abraham Lincoln`Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

Birds of an extraordinary feather ...
Dan Bessie implies that we ALL have such people in our families.Frankly - I doubt that.Certainly, if we all had his talent, we could make much of our own oddballs and eccentrics, but in the final analysis we would still only be colouring the grey.His family is and was extraordinary.

"Rare Birds" is an affectionate sketch of an abnormally talented and unusual family.Mr Bessie - being a modest man (judging by how little he refers to himself in the narrative) - would doubtless take issue with that summation, but it is nonetheless true.

In another century, the father of a famous family of writers (Patrick Bronte) acknowledged his own rather eccentric attributes, but at the same time pointed out to his daughter's biographer that if he had been one of the world's "concentric" men he would not, in all probability, have produced such children as his were.

Mr Bessie can, in a way, lay claim to the same process.Talent only occasionally emerges from nowhere, with no previous indication of its existence.Even with the most fascinating material, more illustrious writers have failed to grip the imagination of the reader.Mr Bessie's almost tangible affection and respect for his subjects shines through the narrative.

"Rare Birds" can be as strongly recommended to scholars of the McCarthy witch-hunt period as to those who simply enjoy good writing.Mr Bessie grew up in one of the most unnerving and nervous periods of US history and his personal reflections are both telling and educational. ... Read more

Product Description
Once again the Sills provide a cockeyed view through the binoculars, zooming in on the birds in all their outrageous plumage: from the Mangrove Penguin, who has forsaken the arctic climes for the Florida sunshine, to the Grey-Green Lichen Mimic, a confounder of those who are sure they can tell flora from fauna. 32 full-color illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Another Field Guide to seldom seen birds
The second field guide parody of bird guides by the author/illustrator.Good for a laugh each time you pick it up.I see something new every time.The illustrations are excellent and the descriptions are hilarious.If you are a birdwatcher this book and the first one are a must.Good for practical jokes on fellow birders.

Another Field Guide to Little Known and Seldom Seen Birds of North America
Hilarious Book!If you love birds, this book is for you.If you are a birdwatcher you will enjoy it immencely, if you have a sence of humor.

Now we need a fieldguide to plants of the callabre of these.
I have owned a copy of these books since I first heard them reviewed on NPR. I still laugh every time I pull them from the shelf. Excellent gifts for your naturalist friends and others!!

A must for any birder!
This spoof of field guides really shows the wit and ingenuity of its creators.You'll laugh through the entire guide. ... Read more

Product Description
Of some 10 000 bird species in the world, 514 are to be found in Europe. Of these, twenty-six European globally threatened species risk extinction if their populations are not actively built up. This series of action plans for Europe's most threatened species is the result of a joint project carried out by BirdLife International in collaboration with Wetlands International, involving over 370 experts in almost every European country. The project was funded by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the European Commission's LIFE programme. This book will be of interest to conservationists at both national and local level, educators and all those interested in the conservation of Europe's bird heritage. ... Read more

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On June 3, 1817, Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix set sail for the New World on an expedition sponsored by the Bavarian Royal Academy of Sciences. What he found in Brazil's thorny caatinga woodlands would one day transform our understanding about evolution, survival, and -- in the case of the long-tailed blue parrot now known as "Spix's Macaw" -- extinction.

In this fascinating natural history, esteemed environmentalist Tony Juniper brings the caatinga bird beautifully to life. Not long after Spix's discovery, his parrot -- whose beauty, dexterity, and clear-eyed passion made it a favorite among scientists and bounty hunters alike -- had become more valuable than heroin, and worth thousands of dollars on the black market. By 1990, only one lone male was known to be living in the wild.

Spix's Macaw tells the tale of Juniper's race to save the species, from joining an international rescue operation in the caatinga to calling on private collectors to mate their illegal birds to waiting in vain for a hybrid nest of eggs to hatch. His story brings new meaning to Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers."

A heart-stopping homage to the long, lonely flight of the last Spix's Macaw, this is a compassionate addition to the annals of nature literature and an environmental parable for our time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

TOTALLY AWESOME AND RAD BOOK!!!
This book is about the the wondeful and beatiful Spix's Macaw. I goes to show how people are so selfish. in the book it amazed me that even when 1 spix macaw was left in the wild, noone cared except a handfulof people. The great thing about this book is that it's not only about Spix's Macaws but about other almost extinct animals ( and not just bird) Well yah, I don't wanna give out the sad parts, like the long and boring reviews that are written above or under me on this page, because the ending is so much not what you expected. Don't worry they don't become extinct!But this book isn't for everybody, if you have to do it for a book report ---don't! Only people who like birds and appreciate natur. For me it was easy , because I know a lot about bird, but if your just reading this book, I guarantee you won't understand it unless you rush too the internet or books, to figure out what they said.

Beautiful
This is a very beautiful book. About the years of struggle with trying to save a species from extinction while the greed of human animal "collectors" plunder these parrots from the wild and seal their fate.

This is a very emotional story of a species struggle for survival and it will open everyone's eyes on how we should be treating our planet earth with careful preservation so that no more of our living treasures are gone forever.

A very moving book with great successes and shocking surprises. You'll be cheering on the birds all the way through.

History of Spix's Macaw's Plight, Complete with Political Agenda.
Tony Juniper was a member of the 1990 expedition to Brazil that located the last Spix Macaw surviving in the wild, In "Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird", he tells the story of the species' history, its demise in the late 20th century, and efforts to preserve the Spix through captive breeding. The Spix's Macaw was always a rare bird, found only in the caraiba gallery woodlands of eastern Brazil. Named after Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix, a Bavarian naturalist who happened upon the bird in 1819 during a 4-year expedition to observe and catalog Brazil's fauna, the Spix Macaw was not observed in the wild again until 1903. But by then, captured Spix's Macaws were being exported to zoos and pet owners on several continents.

In exploring the scant history of its namesake, "Spix's Macaw" touches on the history of parrot-keeping and trading as well as the other blue Brazilian parrots: the Hyacinth, Glaucous, and Lear's macaws. The second half of the book addresses the efforts, politics, and progress in preserving the Spix's Macaw with the intention of restoring the species to the wild, including detailed accounts of how we got from having about 25 known living Spix's Macaws worldwide in the late 1980s to having over 60 by the year 2000. If that sounds promising, it is in the sense that it proves the birds can be bred with relative ease. But it's not if you consider the politics and posturing involved, which become obscenely obvious if you read this book.

Tony Juniper is a fluid writer who knows a lot about his subject and clearly cares about it, so "Spix's Macaw" is very readable. Unfortunately, the book's last two chapters are dedicated to demonizing the private owners of Spix's macaws, including those responsible for the breeding successes of the 1990s, and flogging the agenda of restoring the birds to Brazil and to their original habitat. Anyone who thinks that these initiatives are unreasonable or unproductive is apparently selfish, immoral, and actually criminal in the estimation of Tony Juniper. Juniper believes that forcibly removing the birds from their owners and handing them over to the entity that has had the least success in breeding them is the way to save the species. Brazil has had upwards of 35 years to organize breeding and conservation programs and has, instead, vacillated between indifference and incompetence. I wouldn't give Brazil a budgie. The international Recovery Committee didn't do much better, failing to ever produce a studbook and irresponsibly releasing a female Spix who was a known breeder back into her natural habitat -where she promptly died- while there were only 60 Spix's Macaws in existence! Only the death of the last wild Spix prevented them from releasing 4 more birds. Thank god for timely demises.

"Spix's Macaw" contains a lot of interesting information on the efforts to save this bird. Readers can decide for themselves if these efforts and Tony Juniper's agenda are misguided. But I was struck by the indifference to the birds themselves. For Brazil, which insists that all the world's Spix's Macaws -including those born elsewhere- are its "sovereign property", the macaws represent some sort of nationalism. Returning them to "the wild" is a battle cry for fanatic conservationists, who transform the birds plight into socio-political dogma. Private owners keep the birds for their own reasons. But no party in this book gives any indication of having an iota of respect for the creatures. The birds are eclipsed by every manner of agenda. Increasing the birds' numbers should be the primary goal, but it falls victim to Brazil's sweeping claims and self-righteous accusations. A pipe dream of reintroducing the Spix to its natural environment takes precedence over breeding. No one seems to know if the gallery forests could even support a flock of significant size, and, in any case, that habitat won't be there for long. It would indeed be ironic if a century from now parrot-lovers are thanking the private collectors and black marketeers of the 20th century for saving the Spix's Macaw from the fate that met its extinct cousin, the Glaucous macaw: Habitat Destruction. What the Spix's Macaw needs most is for the humans it depends on to swallow a heavy dose of realism.

Tony Juniper, Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rar
In almost every way, this book is a wonderful read. It is ostensibly about Spix's Macaw, a bird fluttering on the edge of extinction (although no specific evidence is offered that it is "the World's Rarest Bird" (see p. [iii])). At the same time, the book deals with parrots in general, considers avian extinctions where relevant, and makes us think deeply about mankind's relationship with Nature.

The section on "parrots in history" is particularly good, although it is here that Juniper pulls the one major bona fide boner of his work. The Emperor Heliogabulus did not rule from 222 to 205 B. C. (see p. 37), but rather from 218 to 222 A. D. It is interesting to note that the bird shown in the portrait of William Brooke, Baron Cobham, appears to be an unknown variety of parrot (see p. 40) and to find that several Caribbean macaws have vanished since the early days of exploration (at pp. 119-20). Juniper doesn't miss a beat in pointing out that many of the parrots allegedly carried by pirates may have been worth more than the loot they stole (see p. 121)! We are shown the place of parrots in Christian theology- one supposedly learned to recite The Lord's Prayer (at p. 44) and are informed that parrot tongues were occasionally eaten to cure speech impediments (at id.). It is therefore strange to find no mention of the role of the "parrot spy" for plantation masters in Black American folklore (see Richard M. Dorson, American Negro Folktales 120-23 (1968)) and not to have Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch mentioned until page 236.

Juniper is excellent in painting a portrait of the life of a Spix's Macaw, as well as providing information on parrot "hand-eye coordination" (see pp. 42-43), "dialects" (at pp. 44-45), and bonding with specific individuals (at p. 50; I remember one Brazilian friend telling me of a family parrot who loved him, but who was finally given away because of his hostile attitude towards the boy's mother). What make's Juniper's book special, however, is the information and vignettes it contains: Tony Silva, the renowned breeder, whose bird-smuggling activities brought him a prison term (at pp. 77-80), the wildlife market at Duque de Caxias (at p. 89), the raid on a Paraguayan wildlife dealer's house (at pp. 139-41), and the tragicomic dance between Brazilian authorities and breeders to save Spix's Macaw (see pp. 160 ff.). At the same time, Juniper does not (and perhaps legally cannot) name names to accompany all the rumors of foreign bird ownership (see pp. 153-54) and fails to comment on what seems to be an obvious parallel between the world's first endangered species studbook (for the European Bison- started in 1932- see p. 159) and the political events which led to World War II and the Holocaust. Those who wish to read more in the area will be hindered by the fact that the volume has no bibliography.

What Spix's Macaw does do, however, is to bring home the poignancy of this dwindling species and to make us view its travails in a larger context. Despite minor faults, this book is a wonderful addition to any environmental bookshelf, and no one who reads the volume will put it down unmoved.

Samuel Pyeatt Menefee

Very reasonable logic and a good read for the parrot owner
Personally, I see a lot of the behavior of many of the environmentalist groups to be simply ridiculous and I think that's an important point for me to make in offering a review of this book.I'm not necessarily sympathetic to many of the ideas and policies of Greenpeace, PETA, Earth First or the like.I do keep a captive-bred blue and gold macaw and in casual hobby reading, I became aware of the conservation efforts being made to save the Spix's macaw some time ago.

There are two strong features about this book that really stand out in my mind and make it worthy of a five star rating.Most importantly, it's a very reasonable, logical account of the problems leading to the bird's extinction in the wild which I believe can be appreciated by almost anyone.While a story like this one can't be dealt with completely devoid of emotion, the book isn't a ridiculous, simple-minded, political work designed to preach to the converted.I feel the author remained as neutral as practically possible in his assessment of the situation and that he offers a book that could easily be stomached by people who simply don't care one bit.

The second thing that really brought this book home for me is that I believe it's a good selection for anybody who keeps parrots - macaws in particular.I've read so much garbage about parrot psychology in CPW, all the parrots as pets books and the like that I figured I just wasn't going to completely get it.This book offers many very interesting insights into the ways parrots may think as well as into their social interactions in and out of their flocks.

If you're loosely considering reading this one and you, like me, are not sold on the environmental "cause", please check this one out - it's well worth the short time it'll take to read. ... Read more

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Product Description
Their home is the Yard, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, (theStandard by which all other parks are measured).Their heroes areRipken, Robinson, Weaver and Palmeiro.They are fans of the BaltimoreOrioles.Find out what it means to be a Bird-watcher.Come home toroost as you find out what you'll need to be a true fan of one ofbaseball's most revered teams. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Orioles magic
A quick and enjoyable read, takes you through the glorious (and at times perilous) times of Orioles history.Many amusing anecdotes from the Streak to the Kid, the World Series victories and Hall of Fame inductees.Brooks and Frank, Cal, Boog, Eddie, Earl, they're all here. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more