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phoenicopterus's review
informative
slow-paced
2.0
Sooo slow. In essence, each diary entry is nearly indistinguishable from all the others. There is no overarching plot and very little progression in story. Although the repetitive sentence structure admittedly gets old, the prose is quite beautiful, and there are some seriously lovely passages in there.
klimts15thchild's review
informative
tense
slow-paced
3.0
As someone who skims past setting descriptions, this was not for me. Although I can admit it’s well written.
cheekylaydee's review
4.0
It gets an extra star just for David Attenborough's narration. He has a soothing voice.
erinpoo's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.5
“I have always longed to be part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the cold unworldliness of water; to return to town a stranger. Wandering flushes a glory that fades with arrival.”
can't believe someone could write simply about walking around and bird-watching and do it with such descriptive elegance... having this much of a command on language is insane
a critic said this book was a master of nature-writing at work and i don't think that that is very far-fetched! baker's writing is very dense, and he twists words and thickens them to match the intensity of the images he aims to convey, and while he does at times stray off into a prose so overwrought and purple that the reader could almost wear it, the peregrine is overall such a beautiful and poetic scientific account of natural environments and this predatory bird. shoutout to ocean vuong for recommending this