The birds that inhabit Amy Tan’s backyard seem a lot like the characters in her novels. I can imagine this book being the notes for a new story with the cast of characters including the nonconformist Hermit Thrush, the comical towhee, the tiny but fearless hummingbird. Their lives intersect, diverge, collide. Some stay on the same few acres for their whole lives, raising families and enduring through changing seasons, floods, droughts, and predators. Others travel halfway across the globe to get there, trading the lean season for a daunting migration, with stories of loss and triumph, and a
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