An enthralling voyage of discovery to meet a rare and mysterious bird of prey that puzzled Darwin, fascinates modern-day falconers, and carries secrets of our planet's deep past in its family history.
Jonathan Meiburg is a writer, ornithologist, and adventurer who's best known as the singer of the band Shearwater. His pieces on science, nature, and music have appeared in The Believer,Talkhouse, and The Appendix. His unique career between the sciences and the arts makes him an ideal guide for a journey that takes in the deep history and landscapes of an entire continent, from the lush forests of Guyana to the windswept Falkland Islands. He lives in central Texas.
A lavishly talented nature writer
*Wall Street Journal*
A book about almost everything... The clarity, the verve and
precision of his writing is perfect
*Tim Dee, author of The Running Sky*
I'm in love with this book. If you like great writing, strange
historical twists, adventure, nature, music and/or birds, this will
quickly become one of your all-time favourite books
*Laurie Anderson*
Captivating ... full of insights into not only our planet's
evolutionary past but also its future
*Mail on Sunday******
A lavishly talented nature writer, [he] weaves a seamless narrative
from the most diverse observations ... a master of descriptive
nuance
*Wall Street Journal*
Hugely entertaining and enlightening
*Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of Birds*
'Utterly captivating and beautifully written, this book is a hugely
entertaining and enlightening exploration of a bird so wickedly
smart, curious, and social, it boggles the mind. Along the way,
Meiburg takes us from the Falklands to the UK, from Guyana to the
Antarctic and Florida, and from deep time to the present and back
again, describing in brilliant language why these birds--and their
planet--are the way they are. If you love birds, natural history,
science, travel, adventure, or just great writing, you will be
rapt'
*Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of Birds*
A book about almost everything... Meiburg tells the biggest of
stories via the odd Falkland Islands' raptor, the Johnny Rook...
The clarity, the verve and precision of his writing is perfect
*Tim Dee, author of The Running Sky*
A fascinating, entertaining, and totally engrossing story of these
under-appreciated birds, deftly intertwining natural history and
human history, and with insights and lessons that go far beyond the
subject birds
*David Sibley, author of What It's Like to Be a Bird*
I'm in love with this book. If you like great writing, strange
historical twists, adventure, nature, music and/or birds, this will
quickly become one of your all-time favourite books
*Laurie Anderson, artist and musician*
Caracaras are not like other birds, or even other birds of prey.
Curious, wide-ranging, gregarious, and intelligent, the ten species
of caracara are a scientific puzzle that has intrigued biologists
since the days of Darwin. And this book - as curious, wide-ranging,
gregarious, and intelligent as its subject - is not like any other
book that I have encountered. A Most Remarkable Creature is not
only about a bird, but about the community of people that has
formed, almost accidentally, around the bird, and beyond that about
humankind itself
*Charles C. Mann, author of 1491*
Does what only the very best science and nature writing can.
Jonathan Meiburg reminds us that our world is not fully known, that
the prehistoric walk among us, and, most of all, how exciting and
unnerving it feels to encounter an animal you've never seen before,
and, even more, to find that animal staring right back
*Steven Rinella, author of American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost
Icon*
Has the breadth and raciness of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel and
the warmth of a David Attenborough natural history program ... What
is delightful about his book is the love of the world it expresses,
and the calm fortitude with which it considers our current
predicament
*John Banville, author of The Sea*
What a remarkable feat: taking a mysterious, oddly social, keenly
intelligent bird of prey that most of the world has never heard of
and animating the creature with such beauty that it comes fully
alive in our imaginations. Jonathan Meiburg went on an equatorial
search for the latter-day descendants of the age-old caracara and
brought back - a little like Darwin himself - travel report,
documentary, biography, social history, scientific treatise. And
all of it so wonderfully readable
*Paul Hendrickson, author of Hemingway's Boat*
This book is an evolutionary labyrinth, taking Meiburg to the end
of the world following a single, curious predator. Vivid,
beautiful, and scientifically rich, crawling with jungle ants,
blasted by Antarctic winds, his tales will transport you from the
page to wilder places
*Craig Childs, author of Atlas of a Lost World*
If you've ever been at a dull party and then met a person who
suddenly brightened the vibe with energetic conversation about his
abundant enthusiasms, you know a little of what it's like to come
upon Jonathan Meiburg and his first book during a pandemic
*Washington Post*
A wonderful book about a fascinating species of bird. I loved its
layering of ethology, travel writing and part biography of the
author and naturalist, William Henry Hudson. I found myself as
enthralled by the birds as I was by the landscapes of South America
- from Patagonia to Guyana - Meiburg travels through in search of
them
*James Macdonald Lockhart, author of Raptor*
In A Most Remarkable Creature, Jonathan Meiburg introduces us to
surely South America's most misunderstood birds, the caracaras.
Written sensitively and with an artist's eye for detail, this
beautiful and well-researched book sets the record straight, and
leaves us yearning to spend time with these intelligent, curious
creatures
*Jon Dunn, author of 'The Glitter in the Green'*
[An] elegant debut... Meiburg's voice is poetic... clear and
beautiful
*NPR*
Meiburg's writing possesses that rare, and very readable, ability
to tread surely between the studious and the conversational that
renders his obvious deep knowledge pleasingly lightly-worn
*Will Burns*
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