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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
This was an especially interesting read as someone who works in archives. It's fairly common for people to ask why or how we become the stewards of culturally significant material, but those questions are usually posed in good faith. There are situations in which there is and should be heat behind those questions - namely when discussing material that was stolen from its provential culture, community, etc. which leads to critical discussions of repatriation, accessibility, preservation, and so on.
It's fascinating to read about a community of people - who have no sociocultural claim to the material - who feel entitled to these feathers to the point of grand larceny, smuggling, and poaching. And then double down when confronted on complicity. Again, it's fairly common for people to have no clue or even form a bad faith assumption of how an institution maintains inventory control, but it was wild to hear about it from the other side of the table. Fascinating book.
It's fascinating to read about a community of people - who have no sociocultural claim to the material - who feel entitled to these feathers to the point of grand larceny, smuggling, and poaching. And then double down when confronted on complicity. Again, it's fairly common for people to have no clue or even form a bad faith assumption of how an institution maintains inventory control, but it was wild to hear about it from the other side of the table. Fascinating book.
A quick, enjoyable read, especially for readers interested in natural history, conservation, fly fishing and/or fly tying. Johnson is an excellent story teller and a great character within the book, a crime story about the theft of prize endangered bird specimens from a natural history museum, many collected by the famed naturalist Alfred Wallace, who discovered evolution within the same time period as Darwin. For folks who aren't going to pick the book up: I highly recommend the This American Life episode on the bird heist.
informative
medium-paced
True crime that reads like a novel.
True crime dead bird museum heist! This American Life episode covers all of it, basically: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/654/the-feather-heist.
Fascinating obsession and sad loss to natural history.
Fascinating obsession and sad loss to natural history.
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
So many layers of dork upon dork with a good dose of natural history and environmentalism, all couched in some superb writing. Loved it!
informative
medium-paced
3.5 stars. This book had a very interesting story to tell! The writing for me wasn’t the best non fiction writing I’ve ever read, but certainly not the worst either. Worth a read!
A great mix of natural history, fashion, and crime.