Grrlscientist recommends Keen Kaufman’s Flights against the sunset, a memoir of a bird-watcher:
When Kenn Kaufman was sixteen, he left home in pursuit of a dream; to see more species of birds in the United States in one calendar year than had ever been seen before. Instead of preventing him from trying to achieve this dream as most people would have done, his parents allowed him to go with their blessing. Now, as an adult, a famous birder and field guide who travels the world, we find Kaufman in a nursing facility in Wichita, Kansas, visiting his seriously ill mother after having just returned from leading a nature tour in Venezuela. Yet despite her declining health, pain and impending death, she wants to hear all about his journey. So in this touching and often amusing memoir, Flights Against the Sunset (NYC: Houghton Mifflin; 2008), we all get to peek in to this day-long visit, a visit that might be the author’s last chance to speak with his mother.
But what can a son tell his mother so she understands his passion for the natural world, particularly for birds? Realizing that superficial stories about accomodations and detailed recitations of bird lists or ornithological facts could not possibly convey his all-consuming fascination, the author decides that his tales would have to originate “from that frontier where the world of birds intersects with the world of the humans who pursue them.”
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This hardcovered book is roughly the size of a diary or field guide, so it is easy to carry on a subway or elsewhere. Its 225 pages contain 19 essays, most of which were rewritten and adapted from Kaufman’s long-running column in Bird Watcher’s Digest. These essays are connected by smaller vignettes describing his day-long visit with his mother, and the book ends in a most satisfying way — in fact, I’ll bet the author will never look at a black-capped chickadee in the same way again! I have only one complaint about this book; at $24, it’s expensive for the size. But other than that, this sweet little book will make a pleasant read for a long afternoon spent at the beach or on a flight to somewhere, and it would make a really wonderful mother’s day gift.
Take a look!
