book data
84 ratings,
3.43
average rating, 24 reviews
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published
April 25th 2006
(first published 2005)
by Plume Books
binding
Paperback, 304 pages
isbn
0452285399
(isbn13: 9780452285392)
description
What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father?
Richard Koeppel's obsession b...more
Richard Koeppel's obsession b...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 126)
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5 stars (14)
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4 stars (24)
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3 stars (32)
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2 stars (12)
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1 star (2)
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avg 3.43
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in January, 2006
An inspiration for fledgling (hah) birders and compulsive list-makers like me. A son chronicles his father's discovery of birding as a child and subsequent rise into the ranks of famous listers--people who travel the globe trying to check birds off their life lists. I feel so...insignificant.
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Read in October, 2008
recommends it for:
very few people
Well I didn't really care about the people. And I didn't really think the writing was much to, uh, write home about. And the birds themselves were kind of a sidebar to this self-indulgent bio-book about the ignored kid/author, the distant father and self-indulgent mother. So I guess I wasn't that crazy about this.
However, I've run the gamut of these bird-chaser stories and they seem to have something in common. The obsessed birders who run after these birds to add them to a list mig...more
However, I've run the gamut of these bird-chaser stories and they seem to have something in common. The obsessed birders who run after these birds to add them to a list mig...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in April, 2009
Don't mix birding with complicated family dynamics. That's the take-away from this dreary, disjointed book. Koeppel basically sketches a biography of his father, one of the world's foremost "birders." While the two didn't share a very good relationship, Koeppel tries to be understanding and write sympathetically, to outline and explain his fractured interactions with his dad. He also writes about birding. All the stuff about Koeppel's father is maudlin drudgery. A lot of the birding st...more
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Read in January, 2009
Absolutely amazing. A son writing his father's biography having to do with life's ambitions and obsessions. Sometimes the two are separate ... in this case, they intertwine. The end result is a brilliant introduction to the world of "birding," "counting," not to mention the open door inviting you into the author's life.
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Read in December, 2008
A very funny book from a son's point of view. The son relates the quest for his father's insatiable appetite to see as many birds as he can. Birders are the ultimate list makers and the list is never-ending. The list becomes an obssession and a race. It was very comical and an enjoyable read.
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Read in January, 2008
The author writes about his father's birdwatch quest-- one of the handful of people in the world that has checked more than 7,000 birds off on his life list. It's not the way I birdwatch, but it's kind of weird and fascinating, and the competitive lister birdwatchers help push the science of ornithology in interesting ways. To get the interesting stuff out of this book though, like John Audobon being kind of a loser for most of his life, or how and why his father became such a driven birdliste...more
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The book read like a bunch of Outside magazine articles loosely tied together with a bit of plot, which I guess it was.
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About 9,600 species of birds.
100 people have spotted 6,000.
12 people have 7,000
PETERSON: "The boom in birding seems to be an antidote for the pressures and artificialities of the modern world."
Birders : John Cahoon searching for Raven's eggs, lost control of ropes and tumbled to death, corpse hung over palisade for several day before retrieved. Others killed in crashes, Phoebe Snetsinger raped, David Hunt killed by tiger while chasing a Forest...more
100 people have spotted 6,000.
12 people have 7,000
PETERSON: "The boom in birding seems to be an antidote for the pressures and artificialities of the modern world."
Birders : John Cahoon searching for Raven's eggs, lost control of ropes and tumbled to death, corpse hung over palisade for several day before retrieved. Others killed in crashes, Phoebe Snetsinger raped, David Hunt killed by tiger while chasing a Forest...more
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Read in September, 2008
Bird photographer extraordinaire Stuart Immonen
mentioned this book, and I was really looking forward to it, but it’s more of a 'gee my dad was so neat and my family so unique' biography than it is a 'my dad was an avid bird watcher and here’s the story of that' book.
This would have been much, much more compelling (and on-topic) if it was simply the journals of the father, which we get a taste of as excerpts that introduce each chapter.
mentioned this book, and I was really looking forward to it, but it’s more of a 'gee my dad was so neat and my family so unique' biography than it is a 'my dad was an avid bird watcher and here’s the story of that' book.
This would have been much, much more compelling (and on-topic) if it was simply the journals of the father, which we get a taste of as excerpts that introduce each chapter.
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Read in January, 2009
Best birding book I have read since the one about the Big Years.
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Read in February, 2007
Honestly fairly difficult for me to get though, despite not being long at all. The focus on birding in this story is just so different from mine, I found myself gritting my teeth a lot. A LOT. ...And reading especially irritating passages to anyone near me so they could understand why it took me about a month to make it through this <300 page book.
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Read in July, 2005
Finished this book in a marathon all-day reading session, and, not unlike the compulsive big-list birders, I immediately wrote it down on my book list. It is the story of a man (the author's father) who, after a divorce, pushes everything aside to look at birds. Eventually everything revolves around the pursuit of birds.
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Read in May, 2007
This book really is more about Koeppel's relationship with his father, and less about birding. If you're looking for an impressive world-birding travelogue, I recommend Phoebe Snetsinger's Birding on Borrowed Time. For a great book about birding, check out Kaufman's Kingbird Highway.
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Read in February, 2008
2.5 Stars if I could. An interesting read, but Koeppel almost lost me. The book is as much about Koeppel's family story and relationship w/ his father as it is a book on one of the best "birders" in history.
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Read in February, 2007
Any birder will enjoy this book! But the author also did a great job of making a hard, difficult man (as seen through the eyes of his son) seem human after all.
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Didn't finish. I liked the story but lost patience for the audio book format. I may try again with a proper book at some point.
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I liked this book, but I felt bad about how dysfunctional his family was as a result of his dad's obsession with birding.
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Read in January, 2008
I love birding. After reading this book I realized I will never have a life list like the most obsessed birders!
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