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The Feather Thief

Kirk Wallace Johnson

4.02 · Rating details · 11,934 ratings · 1,964 reviews

On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth ...more

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Paperback, 336 pages

Published April 23rd 2019 by Penguin Books (first published April 24th 2018)

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Feb 16, 2019 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Described as the pursuit of justice in the feather underground, Kirk Wallace Johnson's The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century delivers. Picking this book up, I wasn't sure what to expect. One thing for sure is that this book is about so much more than the crime (Edwin Rist stealing somewhere in the range of $1M worth of rare feathers primarily collected during the Victorian era). In a very accessible way, Johnson recounts the obsession of Victorians to ...more

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May 27, 2018 Carol added it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, adreniline-adventure, true-crime

An online forum recently posted a list of true crime without murder or violence. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century would fit the bill as no murder nor physical harm befalls any person. Yet is any crime without a victim? Each reader would come up with a different list of who or what was affected by the events that are related in this book. Perhaps not as disturbing as the loss of life or a brutal rape or abuse, but still a story of devastating An online forum recently posted a list of true crime without murder or violence. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century would fit the bill as no murder nor physical harm befalls any person. Yet is any crime without a victim? Each reader would come up with a different list of who or what was affected by the events that are related in this book. Perhaps not as disturbing as the loss of life or a brutal rape or abuse, but still a story of devastating loss.

I could not summarize what this book is about better than this quote from author, Kirk Wallace Johnson.

”Initially, the story of the Tring heist—filled with quirky and obsessive individuals, strange birds, curio-filled museums, archaic fly recipes, Victorian hats, plume smugglers, grave robbers, and, at the heart of it all, a flute-playing thief—had been a welcome diversion from the unrelenting pressure of my work with refugees.”

It is always fascinating to hear where the idea of a book is born. In the above quote Johnson refers to his work with refugees, this being his way of righting a wrong he saw first hand in his job reconstructing the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Overtired, he walked out a window which he refers to as a “PTSD-triggered fugue state” in which he nearly died. While recovering he launched a non-profit to help the refugees but when he needed a break it was trout fishing that provided relaxation. Quietly fishing the Red River in Taos, New Mexico with fly-fishing guide Spencer Seim, he first heard the name Edwin Rist, one of the best fly tiers “on the planet” who Seim went on to say ”broke into the British Museum of Natural History just to get birds for these flies.”.

This one brief conversation soon became an obsession with Johnson to find out the true story, what really happened during the robbery at Tring where drawers of bird specimens came to be stored during World War II, in the mansion of Lord Walter Rothschild. What motivated Rist an American talented musician and fly-tier to commit this crime?

The outcome, the finished book, proved to be all that I love in narrative non-fiction. It is a detailed exploration of not only the history of the intricacy and craft of ties and their creators but also the background of the birds, their role in evolution, the beauty of their plumes which were used for fashion almost to the extinction of some species (imagine a shawl made from 8,000 Hummingbird skins) and the quest to ensure their continued existence. My craving for adventure came in the story of Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin, whose first expedition to collect specimens in exotic places ended with all being lost in a ship fire. Eight more years of perseverance netted Wallace many species including 8,050 birds which were sold to the British Museum. Extensive research and the interweaving of these themes by Johnson kept The Feather Thief from being mundane, instead it was thrillingly captivating. It is bound to be one of my favorite books not only of 2018 but of all time. I only wish there had been more photos of the birds whose feathers were a primary picture of the story. The many birding guides on my shelf satisfied my thirst for the splendor of these magnificent creatures. ...more

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May 20, 2018 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: true-crime, biographical, history, birds, autism, reviewed-for-blog, requested-from-publisher, best-of-2018-runner-up

The Feather Thief is a delightful read that successfully combines many genres – biography, true crime, ornithology, history, travel and memoir – to tell the story of an audacious heist of rare bird skins from the Natural History Museum at Tring in 2009. Somehow I managed not to hear about it at the time, but it was huge news in terms of museum collections and endangered species crime. The tendrils of this thorny case wind around Victorian explorers, tycoons, and fashionistas through to modern The Feather Thief is a delightful read that successfully combines many genres – biography, true crime, ornithology, history, travel and memoir – to tell the story of an audacious heist of rare bird skins from the Natural History Museum at Tring in 2009. Somehow I managed not to hear about it at the time, but it was huge news in terms of museum collections and endangered species crime. The tendrils of this thorny case wind around Victorian explorers, tycoons, and fashionistas through to modern obsessions with music, fly-fishing and refugees.

Author Kirk Wallace Johnson worked for USAID in Iraq, heading up the reconstruction of Fallujah, then founded a non-profit organization rehoming refugees in America. Plagued by PTSD, he turned to fly-fishing as therapy, and this was how he heard about the curious case of Edwin Rist, who stole the bird specimens from Tring to sell the bright feathers to fellow hobbyists who tie elaborate Victorian-style fishing flies.

Rist, from upstate New York, was a 20-year-old flautist studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Since age 11 he’d been fixated on fly-tying, especially old-fashioned salmon ties, which use exotic feathers or ordinary ones dyed to look like them. An online friend told him he should check out Tring – the museum Walter Rothschild’s financier father built for him as a twenty-first birthday present – when he got to London. In 2008 Rist scoped out the collection, pretending to be photographing the birds of paradise for a friend’s book.

A year later he took the train to Tring one summer night with an empty suitcase and a glass cutter, broke in through a window, stole 300 bird skins, and made it back to his flat without incident. The museum only discovered the crime a month later, by accident. Rist sold many feathers and whole birds via a fly-tying forum and on eBay. It was nearly another year and a half before the police knocked on his door, having been alerted by a former law enforcement officer who encountered a museum-grade bird skin at the Dutch Fly Fair and asked where it came from.

Here is where things get really interesting, at least for me. Rist confessed immediately, but a psychological evaluation diagnosed him with Asperger’s; on the strength of that mental health defense he was given a suspension and a large fine, but no jail time, so he graduated from the Royal Academy as normal and auditioned for jobs. The precedent was a case from 2000 in which a young man with Asperger’s who stole human remains from a Bristol graveyard was exonerated.

The book is in three parts: the first gives historical context about specimen collection and the early feather trade; the second is a blow-by-blow of Rist’s crime and the aftermath, including the trial; and the third goes into Wallace’s own investigation process. He started by attending a fly-tying symposium, where he felt like an outsider and even received vague threats: Rist was now a no-go subject for this community. But Wallace wasn’t going to be deterred. Sixty-four bird skins were still missing, and his quest was to track them down. He started by contacting Rist’s confirmed customers, then interviewed Rist himself in Germany and traveled to Norway to meet someone who might have been Rist’s accomplice – or fall guy.

I happened to be a bit too familiar with the related history – I’ve read a lot of books that touch on Alfred Russel Wallace, whose specimens formed the core of the Tring collection, as well as a whole book on the feather trade for women’s hats and the movement against the extermination, which led to the formation of the Audubon Society (Kris Radish’s The Year of Necessary Lies). This meant that I was a little impatient with the first few chapters, but if you are new to these subjects you shouldn’t have that problem. For me the highlights were the reconstruction of the crime itself and Wallace’s inquiry into whether the Asperger’s diagnosis was accurate and a fair excuse for Rist’s behavior.

This whole story is stranger than fiction, which would make it a great selection for readers who don’t often pick up nonfiction, perhaps expecting it to be dry or taxing. Far from it. This is the very best sort of nonfiction: wide-ranging, intelligent and gripping.

Originally published, with images, on my blog, Bookish Beck. ...more

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May 01, 2019 J.K. Grice rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nf-nature-outdoor-adventure

FLY: "A fishhook dressed (as with feathers or tinsel) to suggest an insect."

While not a fly fisherman, I myself am an avid fisherman. The author Kirk Johnson was fly fishing with a friend several years ago when he learned the fascinating and bizarre story of a young American man named Edwin Rist. At the age of 20, Edwin broke into the British Museum of Natural History's ornithological building and stole 299 rare bird specimens (skins). Many of these birds had been collected by the famous FLY: "A fishhook dressed (as with feathers or tinsel) to suggest an insect."

While not a fly fisherman, I myself am an avid fisherman. The author Kirk Johnson was fly fishing with a friend several years ago when he learned the fascinating and bizarre story of a young American man named Edwin Rist. At the age of 20, Edwin broke into the British Museum of Natural History's ornithological building and stole 299 rare bird specimens (skins). Many of these birds had been collected by the famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin. Edwin was a music student in England and was an accomplished flautist, with a bright future ahead of him playing professionally in Berlin upon graduation. Why on earth would a gifted flute player commit such an odd crime as specimen theft from a museum?

In THE FEATHER THIEF, Kirk Wallace Johnson superbly weaves history, art, fishing, and colorful personalities into a completely engrossing true crime adventure. I knew of course about trout flies used for fishing, and how they are tied and crafted with materials to resemble various kinds of insects. However, I had never heard of the art of Victorian Salmon Fly tying. This type of fly tying is really seen as an intricate art form, and most salmon fly tiers do not even fish. And while trout flies are quite small, Salmon flies are much larger and when completed can sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. There is also a great salmon fly tiers fraternity featuring shows and competitions. At an early age, Edwin Rist was not only obsessed with becoming a master flautist, but also becoming the greatest salmon fly tier in the world. Both he and his brother Anton had discovered this hobby as boys, were given lessons, and worked voraciously to perfect their craft.

Of course the main component of salmon fly tying is bird feathers. And historically, not just any old feathers will do. The earliest salmon fly tiers used feathers form the Birds of Paradise, the Resplendent Quetzel, the Blue Chatterer, and the Indian Crow among many others. At the end of the 19th century, bird populations world wide dropped so dramatically from over-harvesting (mostly for ladies hats) that conservation groups were finally formed and helped to put an end to the mass slaughter and import/export of certain birds.

Flash forward to the 21st century when salmon fly tying was still popular, but it was very difficult to obtain exotic bird skins. Naturally, many tiers substituted more common species, or used dyed feathers from domestic fowl. But there was still an open market to buy the feathers of rarer birds, and packets of Indian Crow or Blue Chatterer feathers could sell for hundreds of dollars on the internet. So, in his obsession to possess the finest bird skins in the world, Edwin Rist visited the Tring museum north of London and began devising a plan to steal rare bird skins for himself, as well as to sell to others. At the time, Edwin had worked very hard to indeed become one of the greatest fly tiers in the world. Would his plan be successful, or an ultimate failure? Read THE FEATHER THIEF to discover for yourself. What a mesmerizing and absorbing story. I look forward to the next book by Kirk Wallace Johnson. ...more

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Aug 23, 2018 Matthew Quann rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction

Deciding to read The Feather Thief should really come down to how much you want to know about birds. Birds are animals I'm perfectly willing to appreciate at a distance but, barring a series of childhood budgies, they've never been my particular thing. All the same, I've got mad respect for Darwin, Wallace, and their culture-rupturing scientific discovery made possible by tropical birds, so I thought this book would be up my alley.

The bad thing about this audiobook is that the first half seemed ...more

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Nov 06, 2018 Alice Lippart rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2018

Haven't read something so engrossing all year. What a fascinating and exciting book!

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Jan 13, 2019 Leslie Ray rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What an adventure centered around the dedication of the author to try to rectify a theft from the Natural History Museum in Tring (England). The thief had an obsession with obtaining rare bird feathers for making fishing lures, but not necessarily to fish with. Apparently there is a group of people who will pay tons of money for the rarest of bird feathers to create these lures despite the fact that these birds are killed for this very purpose. There is a lot of history in this book on the ...more

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Jan 27, 2018 KC rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, historical, non-fiction, true-crime, nature, science, edelweiss, biology, cover-porn

This is the truly amazing story of how a twenty year old American flute prodigy pulled off an unbelievable museum heist of rare and exotic bird skins and feathers. Edwin Risk loved music but also was quite enthralled in the world of fly fish tying. He spent hours perfecting his craft and while still a young teenager, became a master tier within the competitive and elusive world. In 2009 while studying at London's Royal Academy of Music, Edwin began to put forth a plan to steal rare bird ...more

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Jan 29, 2019 LeAnne: GeezerMom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Seabiscuit. The River of Doubt. The Devil and the White City. Into the Wild. The Perfect Storm.

If you're a fan of these fascinating works of non-fiction, then grab hold of this story of the feather thief before he gets away with it. The book was recommended to me by a friend who is not known for reading much, and his thrilled response to it had me intrigued.

There is a theft involved, of course, but Kirk Wallace Johnson does a fine job - enough to make me wince repeatedly - of bringing into Seabiscuit. The River of Doubt. The Devil and the White City. Into the Wild. The Perfect Storm.

If you're a fan of these fascinating works of non-fiction, then grab hold of this story of the feather thief before he gets away with it. The book was recommended to me by a friend who is not known for reading much, and his thrilled response to it had me intrigued.

There is a theft involved, of course, but Kirk Wallace Johnson does a fine job - enough to make me wince repeatedly - of bringing into focus the massacre of millions of birds simply because they're pretty. In the 1800s, wildly ostentatious plumed hats were the rage. Collecting beautiful (and dead) animals was en vogue. But today? Today? I'm not telling you why these beautiful feathers were stolen. Read the book!

When I started this account (which opens with the theft itself), I kept ignoring that the suitcase used for the heist had wheels. I repressed the fact that the glass cutter had been bought online. The whole museum break-in - for FEATHERS - felt like something out of an Agatha Christie or Ian Fleming story. But no - here, we learn about illegal eBay sales, feel safer when the author drops a pin on his phone when meeting a shady character, and uses screenshots of Facebook pics for evidence - this massive theft just happened, like ten years ago!

Oooo, do I have opinions about the talented teenager involved. Man, am I feeling compelled to discuss this crazy heist. But most of all, I am floored over the worldwide obsession that fed the entire thing. This book did not leave me feeling happy or touched, just agog and a bit angry. If you're up for it, I highly recommend it.

PS. If you're curious about the stolen goods, all of which were antique zoological specimens that were labeled to show precisely where each specimen came from, the date, and more? Take a peek at something similar to what was stolen - follow the link below. This actual seller's handle was mentioned in the book, so of course, I had to look. But I'd neither buy or steal. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Golden-Pheas...
...more

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May 07, 2018 Kasa Cotugno rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, genre-science, subj-eco-danger, genre-true-crime

Reminds me of The Orchid Thief in its readability and theme.

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May 18, 2018 Jerrie (redwritinghood) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I was absolutely captivated by this book! Who knew there was this obsessive group who made salmon fishing ties using the feathers of endangered birds? Amazingly, they often don’t even fish with them and the salmon themselves don’t really care what’s on the tie. For many, it is an art form and an obsession so strong they commit burglary to feed it. This was a great look at wildlife research and a strange subculture at odds with it.

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Feb 04, 2019 Yun rated it liked it · review of another edition

The Feather Thief tells the true-crime tale of Edwin Rist robbing the British Museum of Natural History of hundreds of irreplaceable bird skins, and the greed, obsession, and twisted logic that had compelled him to do so.

For me, the most interesting part of this book was the discussion on birds and how knowledge about them led to scientific breakthroughs around sexual selection. I also enjoyed learning about what museums do with old bird specimens, and how they contribute to scientific ...more

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Jul 09, 2018 Emily Goenner rated it liked it · review of another edition

I flew through the first two sections. Johnson provides a history and tells the heist story in a way that makes feathers fascinating. The last section, though, which tells his story of his obsession, was less interesting to me and a shift from telling the story to personalizing the story; the end didn't work for me but the book is well worth the read.

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Jun 17, 2018 Jamie Canaves rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: recommend, dancing-between-4-and-5-stars, true-crime, non-fic, book-riot-unusual-suspects-newslett

FANTASTIC Nonviolent True Crime
I had wanted to read this one for the nonviolent true crime roundup
I’d done but hadn’t been able to get a copy until now. Now if you’re thinking “But really how interesting can bird specimen theft be?” let me just tell you this book was super interesting from beginning to end, and read like a thriller that I couldn’t put down. Just 10% into the book I felt as if I’d read 10 books worth of information and adventure. You start with a museum heist by a 20-year-old ...more

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Nov 18, 2018 K. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, library, setting-uk, audience-adult, 2018, true-crime

Trigger warnings: animal death, blood, a lot of bullshit around autism.

I've been hearing really good things about this book for the past couple of months, so when I stumbled across it in the true crime section of my library, I picked it up. I found it a struggle to get into, to be perfectly honest, and I can't quite pinpoint why. Maybe it's the fact that so much of the story revolves around making fishing flies and I genuinely cannot imagine being even vaguely interested in making fishing ...more

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Jun 25, 2019 Ilana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: victorian, mystery-thriller, nonfiction, natural-history, history, 19th-century, animals, library-book, science, audiobooks

Rating: - Favourites of the year; hope to revisit!
Review: Not reviewed (edit)
Tags: 19th Century, 21st Century Literature, Nonfiction, Biography, Alfred Russel Wallace, Crime, True Crime, Heist, History, Natural History, Science, Biology, Animals, Birds, Ornithology, Bird Feathers, Exotic Birds, Birds of Paradise, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, Obsession, Specimens, Online Community, Museums, British Museum of Natural History, Mystery, Thriller, Victorian, England, Court Cases, Aspergers, ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Carol rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I don't very often read non-fiction and when I do it's usually of the true crime variety involving a serial killer/murder/missing person, etc., but after reading the description of this book I was very intrigued. There was a lot more history involved than I was expecting but it was quite interesting and I feel like I learned a lot about the reason many birds are extinct or nearing extinction and also more than I ever wanted to know about fly tying. Who knew it was such an addictive pastime! It's ...more

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Jun 07, 2019 Silvia Moreno-Garcia added it · review of another edition

I found the first third of this book hyper-exciting, probably because I love reading about 19th century naturalists. The feather trade for fly-fishermen was interesting. But eventually my attention wandered and frankly I wanted the feather thief of the story to get a boulder dropped on his head. Good book, but in the movie adaptation maybe we can have him eaten by a giant bird.

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May 06, 2019 Laura Noggle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, true-crime, 2019

One Sentence Summary:

An ornithological true crime heist with a comprehensive history of the devastation mankind has inflicted on various avian species.

Favorite Quote:

“Initially, the story of the Tring heist—filled with quirky and obsessive individuals, strange birds, curio-filled museums, archaic fly recipes, Victorian hats, plume smugglers, grave robbers, and, at the heart of it all, a flute-playing thief—had been a welcome diversion from the unrelenting pressure of my work with refugees.”

An ...more

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Mar 29, 2018 Kristen Beverly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: received-from-publisher, edelweiss, treadmill-book

This is such a weird but fantastic book. I can’t tell you how many times I thought, i mean, we’re talking about feathers, right? Feathers? Aren’t there bigger issues going on in the world right now? But it sucks you in & somehow you find yourself thinking, what happened to those feathers? Where did they go? What did Edwin do with them? So crazy how it twists your mind into actually caring about some feathers and what happened to them. :)

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Jul 24, 2018 April Cote rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read this nonstop, completely drawn into this bizarre true crime. Who knew a crime about a man stealing a historical collection and thousands of dollars worth of dead birds from a museum so he could use the feathers to make salmon fly catchers could be so fascinating!

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Oct 12, 2018 The Captain rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Ahoy there mateys! This be one a true crime book about one of the greatest naturalist thefts of all time – of bird skins from the British Museum of Natural History. The reason – their feathers for use in fishing lures. Aye matey, ye did read that correctly. Fishing lures that aren’t even used to fish. Who would think that that would be a big business? Well this book looks into the theft of the birds by a 20 year old flutist studying in London. That part ended unsatisfactorily by me standards. ...more

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Apr 30, 2019 Jeanette rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Rarely am I the outlier for non-fiction reads in this category. I sure am this time. 2.5 stars to be fair, but I cannot round it up. The last section, is overlong and as tedious as trying to explain one person's obsession in a sport or hobby that is for most humans not even a "known" for its process/method.

It's told too in a way that made me seem to have to pick the pieces of the whole together myself somehow. Others seem not to feel that aspect at all. I did.

And there also is a kind of "eyes" ...more

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Aug 21, 2018 Randal White rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fishing-hunting, crime-police-corrections, nature, edelweiss

As a fly fisherman, fly tier, and former policeman, I found this book to be an absolute home run!
A young "savant", Edwin Rist, had everything going for him. A brilliant flautist, he and his brother (also a savant), discovered the art of tying Atlantic Salmon flies. Throwing themselves into the hobby, they soon discovered the extreme costs and rarity of some of the required feathers.
These feathers come from some of the rarest birds in the world, such as the Resplendent Quetzal, the King Bird of As a fly fisherman, fly tier, and former policeman, I found this book to be an absolute home run!
A young "savant", Edwin Rist, had everything going for him. A brilliant flautist, he and his brother (also a savant), discovered the art of tying Atlantic Salmon flies. Throwing themselves into the hobby, they soon discovered the extreme costs and rarity of some of the required feathers.
These feathers come from some of the rarest birds in the world, such as the Resplendent Quetzal, the King Bird of Paradise, the Flame Bowerbird, and the Blue Chatterer. Due to the rarity of the birds, the world came together and enacted a treaty to protect them, and other rare and endangered species. It became known as the "CITES" treaty (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). It's the basis for the laws prohibiting trade in ivory, for example, as well as many other animals and plants.
Rather than simply using substitute feathers (which the majority of us make do with), Edwin concocts a scheme to break into the British Natural History Museum. The museum housed a vast collection of the birds that Rist needed feathers from. The bird carcasses were collected over hundreds of years, and were being stored for scientific purposes.
To not give the entire book away, Rist burglarizes the museum, and makes away with hundreds of the rare birds. It seems that he has committed the perfect crime, as he gets away with it for quite a while. Eventually, people become suspicious of Rist, as he seems to have an unending suppy of the feathers for sale (the feathers can be sold, if it can be proven that they were obtained before the CITES treaty went into effect). He is arrested, but is given a slap on the wrist and released.
Along comes the author. A fascinating man in his own right, Johnson is a modern day Sherlock Holmes. He personifies the word persistent. Through an unending, multi-year investigation, Johnson uncovers much more information. The investigation, and it's revelations, really is quite a fascinating story in itself. Again, I don't want to spoil the book for any readers, so I will stop here!
Not only a story of Rist and his exploits, the book covers many other subjects. Early explorers searching for unknown species, the whole phenomenon of "feather fashion", the history of salmon fly tying, and the fly tying community itself. The author melds these subjects into the story seamlessly.
The entire book flows along very well. You cannot help but learn a great deal about many, varied subjects, painlessly. You will find yourself at times pulling for Rist, and yet at times disgusted by his greed. You wonder how the author found the willpower to keep going on in his investigation, when he hits so many dead ends.
All in all, I highly recommend this book. To sportsmen, to crime buffs, to pyschology students, and to anyone else who loves a good mystery.
Thank you to Edelweiss, who provided me a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
...more

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Jul 12, 2019 Ruth rated it liked it

Read this recently for my in person book club. It was an introduction to a world I never knew existed, where people are obsessed with obtaining feathers from rare and endangered species of birds in order to tie flies they are never going to fish with. The first 2/3 of the book is like a good English mystery with some backstory about the natural history collectors of the 19th/early 20th century, who roamed the world seeking samples of new and exotic species. I was riveted. Unfortunately, it loses ...more

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Aug 24, 2018 Linda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Bill

Shelves: audio, ohio-e-book-project, nonfiction, crime, mystery, history, 2018

When I chose this book, I thought it was fiction. It is not. It's history. It's a mystery. It's true crime. It's very interesting and opens a world that I had no idea existed.
Seems the author acquired the obsession the people in the book already had.

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Dec 10, 2019 Erica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, animals, mystery, history, audiobook

This is a story about a guy who steals a bunch of dead birds from a museum.
How is this even a full-sized book and not a kid's story?

Ok, it's actually about a different guy who got into fly fishing as therapy and finds out about the first guy who stole a bunch of dead birds from a museum.
Still.
This shouldn't be an entire book. It should maybe be a two-part article.

But it's also about the history of naturalism and how Victorian men went haywire, collecting things from all over the world to be ...more

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Jan 04, 2020 Nancy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club

This was our book club pick. I enjoyed reading this book and found much of it interesting. I am not into fishing or fly tying, but that's not the point of the book. What is fascinating is the obsessive aspect of fly tying and its roots in a crazy but popular 19th c writer who insisted that rare and beautiful birds needed to be harvested to create perfect flys to attract specific fish in specific streams.

The book also talks about the obsession for birds and feathers in 19th c fashion, and how ...more

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Feb 19, 2019 Jim Cooper rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-picks, science-and-nature

Five stars because the history was great - the Victorian feather-mania, the Victorian feather-mania backlash, Walter Rothschild/Tring, the evolution of fly-tying - all of that was excellent and worth the time in the book. I also like Rist's story, and what he did, and the reaction to it in the community, the trial, etc.

I felt like the end of the book - the author's hunt for the truth - was unfulfilling and could have been left out. But that's a small knock on a good history book.

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Jul 04, 2019 Ashley rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, science-and-stuff, true-crime, history, read-harder-challenge-2019

I picked this book up for a couple of reading challenges, but I ended up really enjoying it (it's surprisingly difficult to find a non-violent true crime book! Or, actually is it surprising? Maybe it's totally expected).

I basically read this in two sittings, one yesterday morning, and one after dinner. It's only 254 pages long, and it's a fast read (the rest of the page count is extensive notes, sources and an index). Johnson became personally obsessed with the story of a twenty year old I picked this book up for a couple of reading challenges, but I ended up really enjoying it (it's surprisingly difficult to find a non-violent true crime book! Or, actually is it surprising? Maybe it's totally expected).

I basically read this in two sittings, one yesterday morning, and one after dinner. It's only 254 pages long, and it's a fast read (the rest of the page count is extensive notes, sources and an index). Johnson became personally obsessed with the story of a twenty year old flautist who robbed a Natural History Museum in England of irreplaceable dead bird specimens, so he could sell the skins and feathers for an enormous profit, and to supply feathers for his obsessive hobby of fly-tying (the practice of tying fishing flies).

Edwin Rist's story fascinated Johnson not just because it was such a bizarre crime, but because of the underground world it revealed, where other tiers (this is how it's spelled, which drives me BONKERS; I keep wanting it to be spelled "tyers") chase rarer and rarer feathers, many of which come from endangered bird species that are protected by international treaties. They scorn replicas, and venerate the Victorian "recipes" for the flies. Most of them do not even fish.

In order to tell the story fully, though, Johnson also tells us about natural history, why the practice of collecting natural specimens is important, and the history of fly-tying (which from its beginning appeared to be a creation of rich white men attempting to elevate themselves above the lowly masses). Once we've got sufficient background, we hear all about the "heist" (I would actually call it a robbery; it's not complicated enough for a heist), and its aftermath, in which Johnson actually plays a part in attempting to wrap up the investigation. The whole thing becomes more of an investigation into human obsession and greed at the expense of knowledge.

One source (a scientist) Johnson talked to said something that tickled me, so I'll just leave this here:

"'People don't actually fish with this shit, right?!' Prum said. 'So what is it about? It's about this fixation, this obsession with originality. Well, there's no fuckin' originality in the world! Who are these guys? They're dentists from Ohio! What claim do they have to originality in anything?!'

When I told him that one of Edwin's customers was in fact a dentist, Prum laughed. Calming down a little, he went on. 'What I see is a story of the struggle for authenticity . . . to try to make what people are doing meaningful. What they've done is enshrined this in a period where English fishermen were members of a colonial power that ruled the entire globe and could extract fascinating things from it, then sell them in commercial markets.

'But that dream is extinct,' he said. 'That world is gone.

'When I work on feathers,' he added, ' knowledge is a consequence. When I pluck a feather and destroy it, we discover things about the world that nobody knew before.' By contrast, Edsin and the feather underground were a bunch of historical fetishists, practicing a 'candy-ass, ridiculous, parasitic activity' that Prum would be glad to see go extinct."

Worth checking out even if you don't normally like true crime books. There's also quite a bit of history and science to appreciate in here as well. What seems like it would be a really niche subject touches on so many other facets of life and history, like animal poaching and conservation efforts, ladies' fashion, the suffragette movement, the dubious practice of using Aspergers' (now known as Autism Spectrum Disorder) as a defense, among many other things.

Read Harder Challenge 2019: A book of nonviolent true crime. ...more

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Play Book Tag: The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson 4 stars (poll ballot)	1	11	Jan 29, 2020 07:38AM
Crime, Mysteries ...: The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson - June 2019	19	41	Jul 10, 2019 11:45AM
2019 TW Book Club: Finished May book - spoilers ok	1	7	May 11, 2019 07:38AM
MAY book SPOILERS	1	4	May 09, 2019 09:51PM

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About Kirk Wallace Johnson

Kirk Wallace Johnson

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Kirk W. Johnson is the founder of the List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies, and the author of To Be a Friend is Fatal: the Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind.

His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy, among others.

Prior to the List Project, Johnson ...more

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