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A short work delivered with wit, insight, and a hopeful vision of the future. Sibling Dex and Mosscap are characters that bounce off each other wonderfully, as the book peddles along at an easy clip.

If ever a work felt like a breath of fresh air, this is it.

Just a stunning little read.

Only just started it and I'm already enjoying it. It could be the sacred text of the Great Resignation.

As always, the humans are the least interesting part of the book.

Every now and again, I just need to read a Culture novel.

Aww yeah. here we go.

Okay, so I didn't finish reading the appendices, but I am calling this good.

Written by a naturalist and historian, the book is mostly about birds and, at the same time, about everything. With scientific rigor, the natural world and complexities or human existence are compared and evaluated.

Do not simply file this away as feel-good animal stories. Macdonald is clever, challenging, and posses a devastating brilliance that cuts through, well, everything.

Macdonald is also a brilliant writer. This work is just one jaw-dropping turn of phrase after another.

The final set of essays are the most personal and at times feel like the loosest, and least focused. But for all the profundity of the early essays, these are the ones the scrape through grime of the world to see something glittering underneath.

Do read this one.

Something possessed me to just power through this book. It was nice but I definitely stayed up too late reading.