It's rare that I finish reading a book in one sitting, and it's even rarer that I need a few weeks before I can write about it.A few weeks ago I met Russell Hill, the author of The Lord God Bird. Some things are serendipitous, and my meeting Russell Hill was one of those things. At the urging of his publisher Jack Estes of Pleasure Boat Studio, he attended one of our literary salons for another author. We got to chatting, and I decided to read his book that very evening. I became so caught up in the book that I couldn't put it down. It's not a long book, even so I was savoring every word.
The Lord God Bird is a story of obsession, the South and the 1940s, told in a very poetic way. Hill captures the period and the people, but more than that I felt like I was reading a book about another time, a primeval time in the swamps of the South, in the 'Big Woods', with decomposing cypress and slithery creatures, a place where time stood still: a time of The Lord God Bird, the huge ivory-billed woodpecker.
This is a haunting book about obsession. Hill paints a very vivid picture of the South, and he peoples this setting with strong characters that will reverberate within you long after you finish.
Read The Lord God Bird. It's one of my favorites of the year. I look forward to reading more books by Russell Hill.
I wrote awhile ago about swamps and orchids and The Ghost Orchid, an orchid that seemed to be extinct has now surfaced (or at least can be seen) in the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Many novels and non-fiction have been written about t
he obsession of finding this orchid.Is the Lord God Bird really extinct? Have humans developed and encroached so much on the natural habitat that they are no longer there? Two years ago Sixty Minutes had a segment on the Lord God Bird when two bird watchers reported seeing one. The Ivory-billed woodpecker was presumed extinct and had not been seen for over 40 years. No photos--just a 4 second video of a bird in flight, sort of. Other non-fiction books about The Bird: The Race to Save the Lord God Bird by Phil Hoose. It's all a great mystery!
3 comments:
A few years ago I went to a talk by one of the guys who supposedly located the Ivory Bill in that video. I even bought the t-shirt. Hey, he was very convincing.
Good to hear. The men who saw it really know there stuff, so I hope they did see the bird.. which means there are other birds. Thanks for the 'verification.' The t-shirt will do.
I remember reading that the ivory billed woodpecker might not be extinct and I keep hoping that someone will finally see it and photograph it. In the meantime The Lord God Bird sounds fascinating.
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