
This one's for the bird people. And the devotees of life's simple pleasures. And the sentimental who dream of living on 80 wooded acres delicately crisscrossed by avian feet. It's a tough sell, I know.
What I didn't know -- much to my embarrassment -- was that author Julie Zickefoose is often heard on NPR's All Things Considered. So in choosing her bucolic bedside reader, I'm pushing nothing beyond a truly charming book -- written in the same soft language she uses in her on-air pieces, and made irresistible by her drawings. Wait for page 157, where a squabbling Carolina wren writhes on its back like a kid having a tantrum, or page 53, where a spirited phoebe alights in a watercolor dream.
I'm not sure what I like better: the flow of short stories that capture the rhythms of her days; the annotated sketches (I love reading her penciled notes); or the watercolors, which are likely to elicit a few aching sighs. Envy her acreage and its jewels if you must, but hey, at least she has the good grace to share them. (Read an excerpt from the late-November meditation, "A Winter’s Tale.")
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