- ISBN13: 9780792253143
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A
New York Times Book of the Year
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
Winner of the
Salon Book Award
A
Village Voice Book of the Year
Birds of America is the celebrated collection of twelve stories from Lorrie Moore, one of the finest authors at work today.
 âFluid, cracked, mordant, colloquialâ¦. Stand[s] by itself as one of our funniest, most telling anatomies of human love and vulnerability.â â"
The New York Times Book Review âA marvelous collectionâ¦. Her stories are tough, lean, funny, and metaphysicalâ¦.
Birds of America has about it a wild beauty that simply makes one feel more connected t! o life.â â"
The Boston Globe âAt once sad, funny, lyrical and prickly,
Birds of America attests to the deepening emotional chiaroscuro of her wise and beguiling work.â â"
The New York TimesÂ
âStunningâ¦. Thereâs really no one like Moore; in a perfect marriage of art form and mind, she has made the short story her own.â â"
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  â
Birds of America stands as a major work of American short fictionâ¦. Absolutely mastered.â â"
Elle  âWonderfulâ¦. These stories impart such terrifying truths.â â"
Philadelphia Inquirer  âLorrie Moore soars with
Birds of America.... A marvelous, fiercely funny book.â â"
Newsweek âFifty years from now, it may well turn out that the work of very few American writers has as much to say about what it means to be alive in our time as that of Lorrie Moore.â! â"
Harperâs MagazineLorrie Moore made her debut in ! 1985 wit h
Self-Help, which proved that she could write about sadness, sex, and the single girl with as much tenderness--and with considerably more wit--than almost any of her contemporaries. She followed this story collection with another,
Like Life, as well as two fine novels,
Anagrams and
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Yet Moore's rapid-fire alternation of mirth and deep melancholy is so perfectly suited to the short form that readers will greet
Birds of America with an audible sigh of relief--and delight. In "Willing," for example, a second-rate Hollywood starlet retreats into a first-rate depression, taking shelter in a Chicago-area Days Inn. The author's eye for the small comic detail is intact: her juice-bar-loving heroine initially drowns her sorrows in "places called I Love Juicy or Orange-U-Sweet." Yet Moore seldom satisfies herself with mere pop-cultural mockery. She's too interested in the small and large devastations of ! life, which her actress is experiencing in spades. "Walter leaned her against his parked car," Moore relates. "His mouth was slightly lopsided, paisley-shaped, his lips anneloid and full, and he kissed her hard. There was something numb and on hold in her. There were small dark pits of annihilation she discovered in her heart, in the loosening fist of it, and she threw herself into them, falling." Elsewhere, the author serves up a similar mixture of one-liners and contemporary grief, lamenting the death of a housecat in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens" and the death of a marriage in "Which Is More Than I Can Say About That." And her hilarious account of a nuclear family undergoing a meltdown in "Charades" will make you want to avoid parlor games for the rest of your natural life.
--James Marcus Subtitled The Audubon Society baby elephant folio , this spectacular new edition reproduces all 435 of Audubon's hand-colored engravings from the original p! lates of the Audubon Society's archival copy of the Double ele! phant fo lio . Reorganized and annotated by the famed Roger Tory Peterson (who also
From the National Wildlife Federation® comes the most up-to-date, all-photographic field guide to North American birds. Birders will find it indispensable: this single, portable volume features more than 750 species, along with more than 2,000 stunning images by leading nature photographers showing birds in their natural habitats. Captions highlight important field marks, and comprehensive species accounts describe habitats, behavior, flight, migration, songs, and plumages. Other features include: more than 600 maps showing bird distribution in every season; strategies for watching and identifying birds; a complete species index plus a quick-flip index; a glossary of terms; and a checklist of birds. The guideâs unique waterproof cover makes it especially valuable for use in the field.
Essential for the estimated 62 million Americans who watch and feed birds in their backyardsâ"from the ex! perts at National Geographic and co-author of the popular and perennial best sellerÂ
Field Guide to the Birds of North America.Â
No matter where you liveâ"in the country, city, a high-rise or houseâ"this handy guide will quench your curiosity about the feathered creatures in your midst. It features 150 of the most common and interesting birds likely to be observed at backyard feeders, nesting nearby or just migrating through. An indispensable visual index of all 150 species appears on the inside front and back laminated covers, making identification a snap.
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Beginning with Backyard Basics, an easy-to-follow, richly illustrated presentation on observing and identifying birdsâ"with tips on attracting and feeding your favorite birds, birdhouses, and bird-friendly landscapes to entice nestingâ"the book is full of National Geographicâs iconic field guide images and maps.
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Core species on everyoneâs listâ"such as robins, woodpeckers, bluebi! rds and chickadeesâ"are featured in two-page spreads includin! g practi cal tips with additional imagery. Sidebars captivate with interesting and little known facts.
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Backyard Guide to Birds is linked to even more content, including audio of each of the bookâs 150 birdsâ songs and calls at nationalgeographic.com/birding.Birding is the fastest growing wildlife-related activity in the U.S., and even conservative estimates put the current number of U.S. birders at 50 million. According to the
New York Times, some authorities predict that by 2050 there will be more than 100 millionâ"and the
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America will be the essential reference for field identification and the cornerstone of any birder's library. This is the ultimate, indispensable bird field guideâ"comprehensive, authoritative, portable, sturdy, and easier than ever to use.
Among the the new edition's key elements and practical improvements: Every North American speciesâ"more than 960, including a ! new section on accidental birdsâ"classified according to the latest official American Ornithologists' Union checklist 4,000 full-color illustrations by the foremost bird artists at work todayand newly updated range maps that draw on the latest data New durable cover for added protection against adverse weather, plus informative quick-reference flaps that double as placemarkers New reader-friendly features like thumbtabs that make locating key sections faster and easier, and a quick-find index to direct users straight to the information they need.