The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year [B1329]

2023 HCDJ in excellent condition. "A beautiful love letter to nature and the world around us."-Reese Witherspoon. THE PERFECT GIFT FOR NATURE LOVERS, BIRDERS, AND GARDENERS, WITH ORIGINAL COLOR ART THROUGHOUT. From the beloved New York Times opinion writer, a luminous book that traces the passing of seasons, both personal and natural. In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons-from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring-what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer.

Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author-and from us. For, as Renkl writes, "radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world." With fifty-two original color works of art by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This book brought me so much peace. Such a beautiful book about the world around us and finding hope within nature."; "An eloquent and passionate meditation on nature and its perseverance in the face of climate change. At first, I tried to read this short book in a sitting or two, but that approach just didn't work. Margaret Renkl, amazing writer that she is, waxes, by her own admission, "earnest" and seems not to have a snarky streak or a cynical note in her lexicon. Accordingly, although her essays work as a much-needed weekly balm in the New York Times for this reader, they became a little too treacly when consumed seriatim. However, once I shifted my approach to reading one (never more than two!) a few mornings a week, the butterflies began to flit, the birds began to sing, and the compost began to simmer once again. I was hooked. The world needs humans like Margaret Renkl to remind us that our precious world is also precarious, but also that we can do what we can do - like save a snail. Seems like a tiny event now that I'm typing these words, but, in Renkl's world (into which I was invited), her efforts are heroic and meaningful. And compel me to find my own metaphorical snails to save. I'll end with her book's last words: "The night sky is full of stars best seen from a dark place." Earnest words that land just right."; "This book was perfection. It felt like reading a meditation. I read it over a year, one season at a time, which was a great way to enjoy it."