Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from other countries
Ivan
Aventura, educación ambiental y naturaleza
Reviewed in Mexico on 10 January 2023
Jack B. Rochester
Simply the best book about adventure bicycling ever
Reviewed in the United States on 15 May 2021
Jack B. Rochester
Reviewed in the United States on 15 May 2021
Fascinated by the monarch butterfly and its annual journey from its winter habitat in Mexico, Ms. Dykman resolves to follow the monarch’s migration on her bicycle. She rides with the butterflies north, solo, across America, into Canada, a five-thousand mile, months-long ride, and then five thousand miles back to their sanctuary in Mexico. Her journey, begun in March, 2017, ended nine months later in November.
Ten thousand miles on a bicycle: wow. It’s so many miles, demanding so much training, planning, dreaming. A profound mental commitment until it becomes the season, the day, the moment to just do it. Ms. Dykman shares the serious cyclist’s secret in the early pages of her beautifully crafted narrative:
. . . a long trip is nothing more than a collection of miles. If I could bike one mile, then I could bike two. If I could bike two, then I could bike 10,000.
You don’t need to be a cyclist or a field biologist to enjoy reading Bicycling with Butterflies. All you need is the interest in learning about another human being, a humanist, and her hero-journey, for it is exactly that. Ms. Dykman’s quest to learn more about this very special butterfly is bound with her own very special search for self-knowledge and a desire to understand life, philosophically, interpersonally and ecologically. These intertwining perspectives enrich the narrative so much—and make her story so very special.
Bicycling with Butterflies is, in my opinion, simply the best book about adventure bicycling ever: gloves on the handlebars, feet on the pedals, bum on the saddle. I listened to the Audible book, which is elegantly, emotionally narrated by Xe Sands. Her first-person characterization is so well done I couldn’t differentiate Ms. Sands’ voiceover from the author. When I finished listening, I recommended it to some of my cycling friends. But the more I thought about it, I grew convinced there were way too many rich insights, evocative turns of phrase and memorable events which I wished to recall. That would be difficult to recapture from audio, so I bought a copy of the hardcover book and am setting into it with my yellow highlighter in hand.
The print book reveals new dimensions of Ms. Dykman’s story. That came as no surprise; from the audiobook I already knew her as an attention-to-detail person. The front matter dedication, “To the monarchs,” displays her own beautiful pen-and-ink drawing. There is a route map, an illustration of the monarch’s migration routes (yes, there are more than one), and an excellent index in the end matter. Each chapter opens with the number of days, dates and miles covered; she kept a journal and it shows.
I fully expect that by the end of my reading I’ll have hatched an idea for my own road trip, which I will, sans doute, write about in one form or another—although I have no expectations of accomplishing as many quests as has the extraordinary Sara Dykman.
Images in this review
dsky227
Great overview of migrating monarchs with the interesting twist of bicycle travel
Reviewed in the United States on 17 March 2023Anita Price
A great gift for Monarch Butterfly lovers!
Reviewed in Canada on 10 December 2021