Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience (Hardcover)

An astonishing compendium brimming over with bird lore and theory, pertinent quotations and avian miscellany, all of it well-written and much of it amusing --a classic birder's bedside book if ever there was one.<br/> (Peter Matthiessen, author and naturalist )

"Birdscapes" is, for me, the finest book ever written about why we watch birds....Mynott's lightness of touch, combined with his depth of knowledge, experience and above all perception, create a thought-provoking and compulsively readable book. --Stephen Moss, The Guardian

This is an absolutely fascinating book, exhaustively researched, beautifully written, both learned and humourous, and endlessly stimulating. --Bryan Bland, Birding World

Who watches the bird-watchers? This inventive disquisition is alert to both the dawn chorus of birds and the great choir of poets, travellers, and naturalists who have rhapsodized them. . . . For Mynott, much of the appeal of birds stems from the inexhaustible variety of our response to them: he celebrates the fact that, contra Keats, the nightingale's song might not have the same meanings for the modern birder as it has for Ruth among the alien corn.
(New Yorker )

Mynott's eclectic approach belies a lucid framework of thought, as if distilled on a lifelong country ramble and now unveiled in a challenging and highly entertaining tutorial. . . . Jeremy Mynott's outstanding achievement with Birdscapes is to have decoded how birds rank among our closest kindred spirits.
(Euan Dunn Times Literary Supplement )

Why do we expend so much effort to observe, catalog, describe, listen to and study birds? Citing a broad range of sources (Romantic poets, Japanese haiku masters, the Song of Solomon, Monty Python, Thoreau), Mynott ponders our perceptions of worth, our emotional responses to landscapes, and the process of vision itself. . . . Though Mynott provides ample references for further reading, this leisurely, thoughtful, generous book provides ample information and amusement.
(Publishers Weekly )

A rare philosophical exploration of our multifaceted experience with birds: why we are attracted to them, how we encounter and describe them, and their significance in our lives. . . . Birdscapes will appeal to readers who luxuriate in literature and who enjoy nature and especially birds.
(Devorah Bennu Science )

An absolutely fascinating book, exhaustively researched, beautifully written, both learned and humorous, and endlessly stimulating. . . . A book which informs and delights at first reading and will continue to be relished on subsequent re-readings.
(Birding World )

Birds are and have been the inspiration for Darwin, Monty Python, the Philadelphia Eagles, and obsessive listers. The author, a birder, wonders what our experiences with and reflections about birds say about us.
(Matt Mendenhall Birder's World )

Ranging from thoughtful discussions about listing and obsession, to art, nature, birdsong and music, [Birdscapes] seems to cover in one volume almost everything most of us have, at some point in our 'birding careers', wondered about why we bird and why we like birds so much. But where most of us would stop, happy to paddle in the shallows and perhaps leave the questions not fully answered, Jeremy Mynott dives into the deep end and stays there until he's figured everything out. . . . Ultimately a rewarding and very interesting read.
(10,000 Birds )

Well written. . . . Birders will find this book both informative and entertaining!
(Ian Paulsen The Birdbooker Report )

Smooth and quite witty at times. . . Birdscapes has much in common with Jonathan Rosen's The Life of the Skies. . . . Not least among these similarities is that it makes you think. That alone is reason enough to recommend this book. But by making you contemplate birds and your experience of them, it may also help you to enjoy birding even more.
(Grant McCreary The Birder's Library )

Fascinating. . . . An illuminating, light-hearted philosophical tour of what it is that fascinates us about birds. . . . Jeremy Mynott's Birdscapes is a journey across uncharted ornithological terrain. He is the ultimate guide: knowledgeable, entertaining and gentle. The result is a wonderful rumination on birds and birders through space and time for anyone interested in our relationship with nature.
(Tim Birkhead Times Higher Education )

The subtitle of his book, 'Birds in Our Imagination and Experience', hints at the wide sweep of his interests but not, perhaps, at the liveliness and originality of his writing. . . . Mynott is as interested in human specimens as in the feathered kind. . . . Those who appear in this book range from Icarus to Bill Oddie, which gives an idea of the breadth of the author's interests and reading. He has distilled it all into an original and enjoyable compendium.
(J.W.M. Thompson Standpoint Magazine )

The finest book ever written about why we watch birds. . . . Mynott's lightness of touch, combined with his depth of knowledge, experience and above all perception, create a thought-provoking and compulsively readable book.
(Stephen Moss The Guardian )

Immensely wide-ranging. . . . If you love birds and love books, you will find much to enjoy in this particular book about birds.
(John Wilson Books & Culture )

At once authoritative and personal, expansive and intimate, expertly detailed. [Mynott] examines birds broadly, in scientific and cultural contexts, as animals and as symbols.
(Zocalo )

Fascinating, enjoyable, provocative; a wide-ranging ramble through all kinds of birdy things. . . . Such a varied journey through the world of birds and bird enthusiasts that it has something for everyone.
(Birds )

A lovingly compiled compendium of bird lore. . . . A fascinating book, written with wit and charm.
(Phil Bloomfield Oxford Times )

A groundbreaking work and it is extremely well written. Recently, there has been a welcome trend for books on the wider aspects of bird-watching, including our responses to birds. Some of these have raised the bar of quality high but this one soars over it. . . . Though [Mynott's] writing is invested with erudition, it is also blessed with such clarity, verve and leavenings of wit that make it at once informative, invigorating and a delight to read. . . . This is one of the most thoughtful--and thought-provoking--books on birds that I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
(Jonathan Elphick British Birds )

An entertaining and conversational compendium of mankind's attraction to and representation of birds through the ages.
(David Callahan Birdwatch )

An exquisite compendium from a man who has spent his life with birds, from their shapes and sounds to their place in human culture and history--utterly fascinating.
(Philip Hoare The National )

Birdscapes seems to be the product of a lifelong obsession with birds. The author is the former chief executive of Cambridge University Press, and I suspect that he has been acquiring information about birds for many years. This book is his catharsis, an outpouring of his fascination with birds that he just had to share with everyone. Among many other topics, Mynott explains the appeal of birds and why listing is so important. He also compares the allure of birding to hunting and fishing. It's a great nightstand book to savor in bits and pieces.
(Scott Shalaway Charleston Gazette )

A sweeping collection of facts, anecdotes, quotations, myths, and controversies. . . . The wealth of detail and easy-going style means the book can be dipped into at any point and will hold your interest.
(Bill Naylor Cage & Aviary Birds )

The book is, Mynott makes clear at the outset, as much about humans as it is about birds, being one part cultural history, one part naturalist essay, and one part philosophical inquiry. . . . Mynott concludes that 'birds are good to think with,' and so is this book.
(Kurtis R. Schaeffer Virginia Quarterly Review )

Provocative and richly entertaining.
(Tom Gilling The Australian )

Birdscapes poses deep and often fertile questions. Whether writing about aesthetics or conservation, Mynott constantly offers fresh perspectives, deconstructing our assumptions about the way we understand and experience the world around us with an ease that belies the sophistication of his thinking.
(James Bradley Australian Book Review )

It is one of those classic birder's bedside books which ranges over considerable historical, cultural and geographical sources, expanding into a whole philosophy of bird watching.
(Frances Ashburner Bird Observer )

Mynott draws on his many years of bird-watching around the world and from various literary and scientific sources in writing about human experiences with birds. . . . This work is ideal for armchair browsing; readers will frequently return to it.
(Choice )

Essential for the library of any birder. . . . Birdscapes is a broad, sweeping collection of reflections--from a variety of sources--on birds and the practices of birding. Mynott is a philosopher at heart and one of his main tasks here is to explore the meaning of birds in human experience. . . . [The] tendency to draw from diverse sources and Mynott's adeptness at weaving these bits together with his own reflections on birds and birding make Birdscapes required reading for any birder.
(Chris Smith Englewood Review of Books )

I have dozens of books on all aspects of birds; from their behaviour, habitats and distribution, to their keeping, feeding, and breeding. But until recently, I didn't have a single book on the remarkable effects these little feathered creatures have on us. Fortunately, that has now changed. Princeton University Press has recently published this wonderful book on just that--the human perspective on how birds influence our lives. . . . This book would be enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in birds in the wild or in captivity. . . . A fascinating ramble through the culture of birds.
(Susan Anderson Australian Aviculture )

This book is stimulating, thought provoking, informative, amusing at times and uses our often abused language to full potential. I confess to having resorted to my dictionary on a few occasions but have now added ornithomorphism and ornithomancy to my vocabulary!
(Simon Cox Essex Birding )

Though it is well illustrated by black and white line drawings and photographs, together with an eight-page colour section, it is the thoughtful and entertaining words that make this volume so easy to recommend.
(Birds Illustrated )

This is a book for birdwatchers, yes, and it would make an excellent gift, but it's also a book for anyone who appreciates the out-of-doors.
(R.G. Schmidt Citrus County Chronicle )