top nature book read in 2017

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As you might suspect, I read a lot of nature/natural history books. It is just who I am. Occasionally, I will drift to another genre, as when my friend Charlie convinced me to read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in the spring, and she was right—spooky, weird, dark humor.  But as a rule, I’m a nature boy. As Annie Dillard advised, "you read the genre you write because that is what your brain thinks about" and I have written three books on nature and natural history so Annie knows best.

I would probably make a lot more money if I read and wrote spy novels, but hidden in the woods as I am, I'm a long way from espionage.
 

My favorite nature book that I read in the past year was a bit of a surprise: Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Who would want to read or even write a book about starlings? Don't we all hate them? Yet, it was the Mozart hook that got me. And yes, indeed, the famed composer once kept a pet starling he named "Star."

Haupt weaves a curious tale. She brings to the table a love of birds, knowledge of classic music especially the stringed instruments and an obvious admiration of quirky, off color, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (If you have seen the play or movie Amadeus, you know what I am talking about.) But Haupt also goes as far as taking in a pet European starling herself and it is perfectly legal since it is an introduced troublesome species that has no Federal protection. Introduced from Europe, the common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) even has the the word vulgar in their scientific nomenclature. Her starling "Carmen" provides the humor in the book. The author even manages to travel to Vienna in search of all that is left of the prolific, yet died in poverty, composer himself.

But where Mozart’s Starling transcends other books about birds comes in the closing pages where Haupt goes from the beauty of starling murmurations into the realm of philosophy and why we all have a cosmic role to play, a creative force, a uniqueness, part of the collective yet singular too. I read the closing pages three times marveling at its message and beauty. 

And as you might suspect, gained an entire new appreciation of starlings.

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