2024-2025 Season

By Drina Nemes, Book Discussion Host

Season 5’s books delve into the connections we have with birds, with American ornithology and its history, and with the extreme birding of big year competitions. We have added the movie The Big Year (2011) as a companion to the discussion of the book of the same name. 

Ten Birds That Changed the World, our first selection, is written by Stephen Moss, a British natural historian, birder, author, and television producer. Thor Hanson, the author of Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, which we read in season 3, said this of Ten Birds… “Moss writes with the scope of a scholar and the confidence of a careful observer, finding fresh and fascinating insights into the lives and legacies of ten iconic birds. A thoughtful, thought-provoking, and thoroughly enjoyable book.”

We continue to meet on Zoom at 7:00 p.m. These are the 2024-2025 dates:

October 15, 2024              Ten Birds That Changed the World, by Stephen Moss
January 21, 2025              The Birds That Audubon Missed, by Kenn Kaufman
April 29, 2025                    The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik; AND The Big Year movie. The Big Year is the story of intense rivalry in the 1998 Big Year competition between Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller. Let’s read the book AND watch the movie before our meeting and discuss both! Here is a trailer for the film:   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1053810/ The Big Year movie (2012) can be accessed from The Cleveland Public Library: https://search.clevnet.org/client/en_US/cpl-main/search/results?qu=the+big+year