Book Review: The Bedside Book Of Birds, Edited By Graeme Gibson

Melita

26 January 2008, 08:26

The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany is a real pleasure. It would be for anybody who flipped through it, whether or not they were fond of birds, or whether or not they were fond of reading.

Even the paperback edition is a beautiful object in its own right, full of pictures that go well beyond the typical twee Audubon collection. Thick creamy paper, lovely typeset – no mistake, this is a book aesthetic types would like to see and be seen at their bedsides.

However, for those who are fond of reading, The Bedside Book of Birds is something of a treasure trove. Old famous friends pop up – William Blake, Franz Kafka, and a couple of unsettling book excerpts from Haruki Murakami and Bruce Chatwin.

The book is something of a treasure map as well, pointing the way to writers less well known by Anglophone readers. It’s left me with a powerful urge to find more work by Axel Munthe, Alberto Caiero and Jean de la Ville de Mirmont.

So the book’s editor, retired novelist Graeme Gibson, has done a great job gathering a wonderful collection of extracts and poems from a wide range of authors. Through this selection, he has also done a good job of illustrating the complicated and changeable relationships between birds and humans – as he calls us, ‘the only singing primate’.

The only point where his work comes into question is in his own introductions to each of the book’s nine sections. They seem rather more hurried and less sub-edited than the one fine, chilling excerpt about passenger pigeons he includes from one of his own works. These sloppier (if well-meaning) introductions are jarring in the context of otherwise unbroken excellent or fascinating pieces.

But I do recommend this book whole-heartedly for what it is; a visual and literary treat that belongs at the bedside. Something to dip into at one’s leisure, best at the end of the day; at the time when our tired souls, such as they are, need a bit of the freedom and grace we’ve marvelled at in birds since the beginning of our ability to marvel.

The Bedside Book of Birds is available to order from its publisher, Bloomsbury.

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