1.14k reviews for:

The Comfort of Crows (Reese's Book Club Pick): A Backyard Year

Margaret Renkl, Billy Renkl

4.2 AVERAGE

melissaplanet's review against another edition

4.75

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doublecola's review against another edition

3.75

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powerwalkingcaterpillar's review against another edition

3.0

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tofutina's review against another edition

4.25

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five stars for this: 
"Homeowners are still in thrall to a status symbol invented by English nobility. People enraptured with the idea of a lawn as a rolling carpet of grass, a green that remains green even during season when grass is supposed to be dormant, can't help but see these homely flowers as intruders.

They consider this question, if they consider it at all, as a matter of personal preference: I like wildflowers, and they like grass. But with biodiversity disappearing from every ecosystem on the planet, including our own, our preferences aren't ethically equal. Lawns are a waste of precious water and soil because non-native landscaping like turf grass (...) provide little habitat or food for native wildlife."

adodson731's review against another edition

4.25

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spudkidsva33's review against another edition

4.0

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wyrmling_devourer's review against another edition

4.5

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kenovak's review against another edition

5.0

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booksforlunch345's review against another edition

4.25

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"The Comfort of Crows" was a meditative read, and you can tell the author was very passionate about all of the subjects in life that she put to pen. The way that the year was set up took you in a natural rhythm, and the stories were like explorations of the minutes you've spent looking out your own window or around your own kitchen table and simply observing the world around you. The book was set up as a prayer and psalm ("praise song" as the author titles many chapters) to an unspecified "God". Though the author may have had her thoughts being Catholic, it's easily taken as concretely or as abstractly as you care to take it. I can only say that, while meditative, it was sometimes too slow and I had to break it into small chunks, which disrupted the flow a bit.

With regard to reviewers saying that it is "political", it is political only in the ways that today's American politics make it so…acknowledging that the world is changing, and that humans do impact the world around us by our choices and that there are things and systems that people influence for the better and for the worse. There is no overt connotation as to political party, but there is a nod to the sciences of life, weather, and ecology. So take the "it's political" comments with that grain of salt.

koldy21's review against another edition

2.75

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