Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sue_reilly 's review for:
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
by Kirk Wallace Johnson
I read this book for the non-violent true crime category of the 2019 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. I overall liked this book but.....
Firstly, if you're used to reading great long-form journalism or nonfiction, this book is slightly awkward. The author includes a lot of information about his interview and research process, and it's kind of interesting but mostly it's just very clear that he is not a professional journalist. Why on earth would you hire a bodyguard to interview someone, and also bring your wife to that interview? I was very baffled by that whole part of the book, I thought someone was going to get shot but then nothing happened and I wondered why even include that? I don't know. It was weird.
So we get a lot of information about the author's process but he left out other information that would have been helpful for this book. The book is about a fly-tying hobbyist who steals bird specimens from a natural history museum so he can sell their feathers to fly-tiers. Natural history museums, the history of European bird collections (specifically Alfred Russel Wallace), the impact of the millinery trade and the founding of the Audubon Society, and the international and U.S. laws protecting bird species are discussed. Those are all relevant, but there is really not a lot of discussion of the birds themselves, or really......nature? I felt like more could have been included about the threats to those species now, and their ecological significance.
The author obliquely discusses how the demand for feathers impacts species, but I wish he had more directly focused on it. At one point in his interview, Edwin says that he thinks that he probably saved some birds by stealing birds from the natural history museum. The author at this point should have pointedly said, "Stealing birds from the natural history museum to sell to fly-tiers in fact increases demand for these feathers, which in turn increases the threat of hunting to these particular species." The fly-tiers apparently need it explained to them that what they are doing is detrimental to rare species in a direct way.
It made me really sad and angry that the fly-tiers all said that natural history museums were just hoarding these birds for no purpose. Johnson did an ok job describing the use of these birds to modern science, but he really didn't put enough emphasis on it. We obviously need better ambassadors to share the importance of natural history museums. Of course, the fly-tiers will continue to delude themselves no matter how many times it's explained to them.
While I'm throwing out complaints I'll add in that the language about collectors going out into the world to "discover" new species was Euro-centric in a way that sounds very out of date in 2019.
So that is a lot of complaints about a book that overall was very good and educational and well-written. I definitely recommend it, and the audio was very good.
Firstly, if you're used to reading great long-form journalism or nonfiction, this book is slightly awkward. The author includes a lot of information about his interview and research process, and it's kind of interesting but mostly it's just very clear that he is not a professional journalist. Why on earth would you hire a bodyguard to interview someone, and also bring your wife to that interview? I was very baffled by that whole part of the book, I thought someone was going to get shot but then nothing happened and I wondered why even include that? I don't know. It was weird.
So we get a lot of information about the author's process but he left out other information that would have been helpful for this book. The book is about a fly-tying hobbyist who steals bird specimens from a natural history museum so he can sell their feathers to fly-tiers. Natural history museums, the history of European bird collections (specifically Alfred Russel Wallace), the impact of the millinery trade and the founding of the Audubon Society, and the international and U.S. laws protecting bird species are discussed. Those are all relevant, but there is really not a lot of discussion of the birds themselves, or really......nature? I felt like more could have been included about the threats to those species now, and their ecological significance.
The author obliquely discusses how the demand for feathers impacts species, but I wish he had more directly focused on it. At one point in his interview, Edwin says that he thinks that he probably saved some birds by stealing birds from the natural history museum. The author at this point should have pointedly said, "Stealing birds from the natural history museum to sell to fly-tiers in fact increases demand for these feathers, which in turn increases the threat of hunting to these particular species." The fly-tiers apparently need it explained to them that what they are doing is detrimental to rare species in a direct way.
It made me really sad and angry that the fly-tiers all said that natural history museums were just hoarding these birds for no purpose. Johnson did an ok job describing the use of these birds to modern science, but he really didn't put enough emphasis on it. We obviously need better ambassadors to share the importance of natural history museums. Of course, the fly-tiers will continue to delude themselves no matter how many times it's explained to them.
While I'm throwing out complaints I'll add in that the language about collectors going out into the world to "discover" new species was Euro-centric in a way that sounds very out of date in 2019.
So that is a lot of complaints about a book that overall was very good and educational and well-written. I definitely recommend it, and the audio was very good.