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 enlarge | Author: Graeme Gibson
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $9.78
You Save: $20.17 (67%)
New (32) Used (36) Collectible (4) from $9.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 218096
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0385514832
Dewey Decimal Number: 598
EAN: 9780385514835
Publication Date: October 25, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Sound Copy. Mild Reading Wear.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
The Bedside Book of Birds:An Avian Miscellany February 17, 2006
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
Wonderful book - amazing pictures. What a treasure
WOW! January 29, 2006
28 out of 28 found this review helpful
This is among the most beautiful books I have ever owned. An exquisite collection of poems, stories, journal entries and reveries about birds that is complemented by extraordinary, rich artwork throughout. Graeme Gibson's careful choices bring out the intrigue, the mystery, the beauty and mythical qualities of birds throughout the world. A lavishly published work of the highest standard, I didn't think books like this were still made. I've ordered more copies to give to friends because I really haven't seen anything else like it.
An artistic and literary tome on birds January 14, 2006
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
This book is a sumptuous, lusciously illustrated homage to birds of all sorts.. common and exotic. It is printed on rich, delicately tintured stock, which frames the splendid artwork that accompanies each contribution. It is composed of poems, meditations, folklore, sagas, journal notes, involving birds, from people who've been inspired.. or irritated by them. The artwork includes famous Audubon watercolours, oils, aboriginal renditions in sculpture or stone paintings, statuary, mobiles and all sorts of depictions.
Gibson is a lifelong birdwatcher and collector of arcane literary and artistic tomes on birds. Birds have always been providential for man, omens of good or evil tidings. Creation stories are replete with birds, they are clarions of peace, of messianic proclamation or of disaster. They include the dove, clasping the olive branch to the raven, the trickster, the wolfbird, harbinger of bad times. They can be objects of veneration, of beauty, of song.. or they can be pest birds, that could ruin a crop, or spread disease in overcrowded cities.
Modern man's relationship with the bird has always been ambiguous. It is shot for sport, roasted for his plate, it is adopted as symbol for nations, it is a muse for writers and artists. They represent characteristics of fierceness, nobility, piety, beauty, purity.. or connivance with dark forces.
Gibson relates the story of the 19th Century Lutheran Pastor in Dresden who called for the extermination of the sparrow for its incessant chattering and scandalous acts of unchastity during service. Or of the adventurer, who having killed what was likely the last of the Dodos, lamented only that he had not saved the beak and skull for posterity. The book is chock full of the mundane, the profound and the mythical.
The book begins (almost) and ends with the birds of the Western Front. Whose singing always re-sounded on the destroyed landscapes of Flanders before and after the mechanistic slaughter of battles that engulfed mankind in the First World War. They gave a faint promise of grace to those in the trenches below. Bird lovers and those whose main preoccupation is the racket outside their window or the droppings in their public places will all find solace in this book.
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