A review by miss_tricia
The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik

3.0

How I came to read The Big Year is a bit of a round about story. Hubby found it on the give-a-book-take-a-book shelf at the train station the day he fell asleep on the way home and overshot his stop. He thought it was boring, but left it out on the counter, where my Mom found it. As she's the fastest reader ever, she plowed through it in a couple of hours, and recommended it as "not boring if you can read quickly, but probably boring if you're a slow reader." I'm faster than Hubby, but not as fast as Mom, so I didn't know. Then I spotted the movie (I didn't know there was a movie!) on the watch-a-movie-about-animals display at the library. We did, and I enjoyed it, so I started the book.

It's odd for me to watch the movie before reading the book, but I probably enjoyed the book a little more because of the movie. The movie takes some real liberties (most notably editing the age and life circumstance of one main character), and I had a good time comparing the two. I learned a lot about birding and some about birds. I enjoyed getting to know the sport and the men profiled. I laughed occasionally. It was worth it.