A superb tale about obsession, nature, and man’s “unrelenting desire to lay claim to its beauty, whatever the cost.”
A captivating tale of beautiful, rare, priceless, and stolen feathers.
Journalist Johnson (To Be a Friend Is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind, 2013) was fly-fishing in a New Mexico stream when he first heard about the “feather thief” from his guide. The author became obsessed with the story of Edwin Rist, a young American flautist and expert tier of salmon flies, who, after performing at a June 2009 London concert, broke into the nearby British Natural History Museum at Tring to steal 299 rare bird skins, including 37 of naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace’s “beloved” Birds of Paradise. Johnson dove headfirst into a five-year journey “deep into the feather underground, a world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, cokeheads and big game hunters, ex-detectives and shady dentists.” Everything the author touches in this thoroughly engaging true-crime tale turns to storytelling gold. These intriguing tales include that of Darwin rival Wallace’s extreme hardships trying to gather rare birds from around the world and losing many of them in a sinking ship; the incredibly wealthy Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild’s museum at Tring, which his father built for him when he was 29 to house his extensive collection of animals and birds, alive and dead; and the sad history of 19th-century women demanding the most exotic birds for their fashionable hats, which resulted in hundreds of millions of birds being killed. Throughout, Johnson’s flair for telling an engrossing story is, like the beautiful birds he describes, exquisite. Furthermore, like an accomplished crime reporter, the author recounts the story of how Rist was located and arrested by a local, female detective nearly 15 months after the break-in; the trial, which features an unexpected twist; and the fate of much of his booty.
A superb tale about obsession, nature, and man’s “unrelenting desire to lay claim to its beauty, whatever the cost.”Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-98161-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Dispatches from the Yeti watch, with entertaining rambles into the deep, near-mythic valleys of Nepal. Yeti, Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot. Taylor-Ide (founder of the Woodlands Mountain Institute) wanted to know more about that inscrutable denizen of the snowy wastes. He grew up in India, learned the appropriate languages, spent countless hours in the Himalayan landscape as a boy. Now he heads back, this time as a father and freelance researcher and explorer, to find new samples of those famous footprints that Eric Shipton photographed in 1951. Together with his family, he camps out in wild, uninhabited valleys deep in Nepal, where, indeed, he finds footprints almost immediately. But then the focus of the story changes. The Yeti gets shuffled to the background as Taylor-Ide begins to suspect that the tracks were made by what may be a new species of tree-living black bear. He tries to interest various parties—the Smithsonian, the World Wildlife Fund—in financing additional forays afield to stalk the beast but gets the bum's rush because he's not an ``expert.'' So he goes back time and again on a shoestring, collecting bear skulls, taking photos, deciphering clues. Slowly it dawns on him that more important than the tree bear, more important even than the Yeti, is protecting the wondrously rare environment he has been trekking through, so that the cloud leopards, musk deer—who knows, maybe the Abominable One—still have a place to live. To that end, he helps establish wilderness parks in China and Nepal. When he hits his stride, Taylor-Ide has a talent for the quick, pungent sketch—of people, landscapes, family dynamics. His narrative—much of it in dialogue—can also be stuffy and stilted, but not so frequently as to compromise the book. While Yeti enthusiasts may be disappointed, Taylor-Ide has been where few have tread and emerges with a fascinating portrait. (b&w photos)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56279-073-0
Page Count: 328
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
The author skillfully fills a scholarly, historical niche, producing an environmental and biographical work with broad...
An encyclopedic, multigenerational chronicle examines a family’s extraordinary contributions to wildlife biology, conservation, and nature literature.
What the Kennedys are to politics, the less-famous Craigheads are to nature—a prolific and accomplished clan. Benjey (Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, 2011, etc.) traces their ancestry to Scottish-Irish immigrants who settled in central Pennsylvania in 1733. In 1868, a railroad bisected the family farm. A great-great grandson built a depot, Craighead Station, and started grain, lumber, and coal businesses. A mansion, still standing by Yellow Breeches Creek, connected generations of Craighead children with flora and fauna. Five siblings, born between 1890 and 1903, graduated from college. Frank Craighead Sr. became a U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist. His brother, Eugene, became a state entomologist for Pennsylvania. Frank’s twins, Frank Jr. and John, gained fame as self-taught teenage falconers. They later studied grizzlies, devised the first radio-tracking collars for large animals, and battled National Park Service bureaucrats over bear management. They wrote the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, authored National Geographic articles, and produced lectures, photographs, books, films, and television programs. Their sister, Jean Craighead George, wrote more than 100 children’s books about animals and nature. Best known are Julie of the Wolves, a Newbery Medal winner, and My Side of the Mountain, a Newbery Honor work made into a movie. Five Craigheads achieved name recognition, but Benjey approaches the family as an ecosystem, deftly covering three dozen members over three centuries. He includes a family tree (indispensable) and a useful index and endnotes. Largely chronological, the book alternates between sections following entire generations through decades and chapters highlighting key individuals or topics. Benjey displays prodigious research skills and enthusiastic storytelling. With extensive family cooperation, he weaves interviews, letters, school yearbooks, family photos, and public records into such detailed scenes that he seems to have been present. He often sounds like a Craighead. Granular details about extended family members occasionally tread close to tedium, but overall, this comprehensive, impressive synthesis of the historical, familial, social, economic, and natural forces that created the famous Craigheads is well-told.
The author skillfully fills a scholarly, historical niche, producing an environmental and biographical work with broad popular appeal.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9909748-9-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: The University of Montana Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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