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182nd out of 284 books
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37 voters
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The Bird Catcher
by
Laura Jacobs
Margret Snow is the quintessential New York woman. She dresses the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue by day and mingles in the downtown art world by night, always searching for her niche in a city intent on capturing The Next Big Thing as it flies into view. Married to Charles, a professor at Columbia, and living on the Upper West Side, the backdrop to Margret’s life is
...moreHardcover, 304 pages
Published
June 9th 2009
by St. Martin's Press
(first published June 2009)
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Margret Snow is lonely and figuratively lost at sea. After the tragic loss of her husband, Charles, she loses interest in her promising job of dressing windows at her friend Emily’s art gallery and at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. Instead, she is a secret, amateur taxidermist by night, finding small dead birds in the city parks and near buildings to take home and stuff. “[She] always had a Baggie in her pocket, just in case she found something fallen.” Marget’s fascination with birds ...more
If the editorial reviews currently quoted at Amazon are any guide (and I'm not sure they are), Laura Jacobs's first novel, Women About Town, may have been more widely admired than this, her second. Thought it's been some time since I read the former (and, for that matter, it's been a while since I finished the latter), I'm inclined to think that The Bird Catcher is an advance, in ways both large and small, over Jacobs's earlier work.
In this book, Jacobs has raised the stakes for Marg...more
In this book, Jacobs has raised the stakes for Marg...more
Grief is personal. Coping with grief is also personal. We all have our own methods of coping with the grief of losing a loved one. Grief can be so consuming that it leaves one unaware of how our grief changes the way we treat our friends and family, and also how the behavior of those who love and care about us shifts to make allowances for the self-centeredness we sometimes unthinkingly wallow in.
I loved this book. It was quiet. It was poignant. It's the story of a woman who dresses wi...more
I loved this book. It was quiet. It was poignant. It's the story of a woman who dresses wi...more
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This book is so beautifully written that it is worth reading just for the language and imagery. The story is well woven, as well. The setting is New York, and the characters are elegant, intelligent, obnoxious and self serving (New Yorkers!). While I liked and felt sorry for Margret, I sometimes felt as though the author was condescending to me. It is hard to put a finger on it, certainly the writing is worth five stars, and the story was compelling. But, something made me withhold that la...more
I had an eerie feeling like this book was written for me as I was reading it (a la The Neverending Story), but in a nightmare sense in some ways. The protagonist is married to a middle-eastern man, is a birdwatcher and insect collector, and there are elements from the dance world in it, too. After suffering a staggering loss, this thirty-something New Yorker has to pick up the pieces of her life and get on with it. The timeline jumps around a bit, but in such a fluid way that you are not dist...more
Bird watching is a very subtle hobby. Birders focus on the small things that are around us all the time, ignored by the masses of people who may be nearby. Birders have patience and a quiet, inquisitive mind that enables them to pursue a specimen in any kind of weather, and go where ever the search may take them. In Central Park, it's especially imaginative to think of these bird lovers spending their free moments searching, admiring, and carrying nothing away but their memory.
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This was a beautiful little book. It was deeply sad, but the writing and Jacobs' art knowledge kept it from being maudlin. So did the birds - with their implicit airness, I suppose - and I really wanted to own one of Margret's shadow boxes. They sounded beautiful and a real meditation on life and death. My only complaint was that the characters seemed much older than they were meant to be.
I got this out of the library and read it over a long weekend on vacation. It is very NYC centered which is not something I usually look for in a book, since I am not much of a New Yorker. I did enjoy the birds, the art world, the characters and their relationships, and the way the book flowed unevenly from one chapter to the next moving forward and backward in time.
Ayuh, I live in Maine now, but I grew up in the NYC burbs and this is how I imagine literary, artistic grown-ups in the Big Apple live, work and generally carry on. I loved how the main character, Margret, deals with finding love, losing love, her weird hobbies (taxidermy, birdwatching) and a cast of unusual, very NY, friends and coworkers.
An extraordinary book from start to finish. Jacobs digs deep to burrow into dark heart of grief and comes out on the other side, transformed and redeemed. Her descriptions of birds and the metaphoric uses to which she puts them are precise and stunning. I give it the highest rating.
I really liked this book, the way the flashbacks skip around and then finally settle at the end was nice, and the story was interesting even though I can't really relate to the pretentiousness of some of the characters. The author obviously knows a lot about the subjects she touches on, art, window design, bird watching and taxidermy, or she at least studies them thoroughly before she wrote the book.
This is a rather disjointed story of a young woman's re-entry into life following the death of her husband. It is also a New York story with characters from the art, theater, and academic world. The writing was sometimes quite good, but overall the the story was thin and not compelling.
Not sure what I thought of this book. At first it seems the author is very enthralled with name dropping so many polysyllabic words, places, names etc. I was a bit put off. But, I continued on and the plot evolved and had a nice warm ending. It wasn't anything that rocked my world.
This was such a movingly sad or poignant book. Her descriptive passages are so deftly done, I had no realization of reading. The cover lured me in and she continued with such a little gem of a book. Really I have no criticisms as the reading experience was so sublime.
While there are some excellent descriptive passages about NYC, birds, and central park, there was something really "off" about this story - at least for me. It did, however, make me want to find out more about the artist Joseph Cornell and his work.
Overall, I liked this book, but there were times when it paid WAY too much attention to the superficial, NY wealth/society. I enjoyed it much more when it focused on the human drama.
Ugg-could not deal with the exclusivity of the pompous cultural references. There's a reason I live in Brooklyn and not the Upper East Side.
This was an absolutely mesmerizing read. I could not put it down. Perhaps the combination of artist/birdwatcher caught me, perhaps the rigorous transformation that the main character undergoes magnetized me, perhaps it was the quality of the narrative and the writing.
Absolutely loved this book. Beautifully written, learned about art and birds and living in NYC, poignant subject.
Wonderful and surprising story about a window dresser in NY with a taxidermy hobby. I know it sounds like the weirdest thing in the world, but it's a great book. (Full disclosure: writer is a friend.) Laura (author) is brilliantly precise in her descriptions, and brings contemporary NY and a particular generation of women into crystal focus. One of the most beautifully written sex scenes I've ever seen. Loved it. My full review here: http://wp.me/p4d9B-95
It took me awhile to read this book, but I actually enjoyed it. I started reading it when I lost my job and I was under medical disability for my hands, arms and shoulders, which made it difficult for me to hold a book and read for any length of time. The main character, Margaret Snow, is a window designer in New York City who is also interested in bird watching. She finds some dead migrating birds and mounts them as a hobby. The book is well-written and the author engages the reader in the ...more
Won this in the goodreads contest.
meant to mark as to be read
I've never been to a large city like New York, so I really love reading books set in the city. One of the things that really makes this book different from others I have read is the descriptions of the natural beauty of New York. It really gives this book a different feel. The characters are well-developed and really held my interest. I enjoyed it very much!
My daughter, Stephanie recommended this book. It takes place in NYC. I almost missed my "L" stop this morning as I started the book.
Edgy book dealing with loss, creation and the ability to move on.
Edgy book dealing with loss, creation and the ability to move on.
The prose was lovely but the taxidermy theme was a bit gruesome and weird..
I liked it.. I mean, I dont really like bird watching but I did love the art-iness and how the chapters went from the "now time" to the past.. it was a smooth transition and I liked it. It was sad at times but the main character pulls her life back together after the death of her husband and realizes whats important to her and how to get back to it.
I received this book as a first reads giveaway, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I found the story to be intimate and intriguing, with both heartbreak and healing. The flashback chapters interspersed with the present day chapters made for a page-turning story.
Unbelievably gorgeous.
I have had this book on my bookshelf for over a year....Every time I pick it up I can not get into it...Which says to me it is not going to get read. I would love to share it with someone. ????
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