Listening to a Continent Sing: Birdsong by Bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific

This book is well-made; exquisitely put together with deluxe paper, beautiful sketches, and almost 400 QR codes to access and listen to, of the birds that he recorded, which are also available on an accompanying website. I winced after finishing the book, though, to see that he dedicated the book to "the birds, and David." In that order. See, David was his adult son who accompanied him on this incredible cross-country bike trip, and the book oozes with the tension between the author and his son throughout the trip. Even the son comments about how much the birds mean to the author! This ruined the book for me, as I didn't like reading the author's denigrating remarks about his son. Periodically he'd make up for it by trying to admire something about his son and stating "Some kid!" which was repetitive and got a bit tiresome, as some sort of "make-up-for-what-I've-been-saying-about-you." And the birds - oh my! Yes, I appreciated the author's knowledge and love for these birds. And it took a lot of hard work to record these birds. But the book is a bit contrived, as he admits in the Acknowledgement at the front of the book that although the trip took place in 2003, he went back three times to record birds between 2008-10. He also had someone else recording birds. So although the narrative is supposedly he and his son's trip and listening to birds along the way, it's been a much larger and longer project overall. More importantly, he quit teaching when he finished this bike trip and wrote three books on birds prior to putting together this book for publication in 2016. Because his descriptions of birds in this book went on ... and on ... and on... I began to feel that this book was merely borrowing information from his prior three books on birds. Being a biker myself, I couldn't see how he and his son would be biking 50-100 miles a day and yet while on the bike, he'd share a paragraph's worth of explanation of one bird or another to his son (who had no interest in the birds whatsoever). He also spoke of his job at the university in negative tones throughout the book, even ending the last chapter with a vulgar word. Wow. I wondered what his son - and his coworkers - thought of what he said about them in this book. Last of all: while he was excellent on explaining the geology of each state he traveled in - and I tremendously enjoyed his time in Idaho/Oregon since I lived in that area for 34 years - he lost me on his continual mocking tone when noticing Christian influences in the communities within which he traveled. This is offensive to those of us who still hold that the Creator God did indeed create these precious birds. The author went on and on about it so much that I felt he must have been convicted of his loss of faith - which he finally admitted to, toward the end of the book, i.e., that he'd been raised in the Dutch Reform Church in Michigan. I wish I could talk to the author and tell him that I could tell that God was still not far from his mind, as he often spoke in biblical phrases such as describing a beautiful day as "heavenly." But the oddest quirk was when he spoke twice of hoping to return in his next life as a raven, which is an Eastern religious view of reincarnation. When all along he'd been proud of his "scientific" view of life, here he was believing in something that is one of the most unscientifically provable belief systems in the world! So I can only recommend this book provisionally, noting the negative comments about his son, his coworkers, and people who believe in a Creator God. And to remember that this book is a put-together project that probably includes material from his other three books, and took years of re-recording, so does not reflect quite truthfully on what happened on the actual 2003 road trip. And P.S. Why no map included?! I had to go online to find the path they were following from the 1976 Bicentennial trail.

I live on a few acres of my own slice of heaven on the Great Northern Plains. Our acres include woods and prairie pasture and is very well populated with a large variety of birds; as well as being in the middle of the country's wetlands flyway. Recently, we built a house that sits higher up in the trees and in addition to being able to identify more birds by sight, I also wanted to be able to identify birds by their songs and sounds -- so then I knew to look for a particular bird. The bird songs wake me up before the sun rises and puts me to sleep at night along with frog song and a chorus of tree toads. The QR codes in this book provide an immediate link to sound identification, as well as the book recounting the story of an interesting cross-country trek of a couple of avid birders.

Told in an easily readible style, this book highlights a cross country bike ride by the world's foremost authority on birdsong, and his son. From the bike saddle he describes what he is hearing, why the birds are singing what they sing, and how it differs across the continent. You also learn a lot what it is like to be on a long bike trip with a family member.Not a false note in the book.

I love this book, for all the reasons that the "editorial reviews" up above say, but there's so much more. I love the conversations with people along the way, especially across Appalachia where the dialects in human voices change as much as the dialects in bird voices, and I can listen in on everything, as if I were accompanying the author myself, by going to the website for the book. I especially enjoyed listening to Charles Haupt in Charles City, Virginia, tell about his purple martins, and hillbilly Mary Lou Napier telling about her birds around the campfire in Buckhorn State Park, Kentucky, or the Rev. James Love in Eastview, Kentucky, telling why his mockingbird sings all night long (they're "happy"). I love the dogs in Kentucky; the friendly people of Kansas.The geology of this US of A from the Atlantic to the Pacific is extraordinary. My favorite chapters are "Caterpillars Marching" (Basin and Range), "Into the Fire" (Yellowstone), "Ascending into Oregon," and "Geological Chaos" (I had no idea that most of Oregon was added to North America by scraping islands off the Pacific tectonic plate as it slid under North America).The book contains fine history lessons, too, beginning where the country was born at the end of the Revolution in Yorktown, Virginia, through Civil War battlefields, to the Oregon Trail, biking with Lewis & Clark, commiserating with Chief Joseph and the Nez Perz.And there's the father-son relationship throughout, often needing a little adjustment, as the father (author) loves to bike early in the morning, while the son (David) loves to sleep in and bike late in the day.And BIRDSONG! Wow, I have been a birder for decades, but now I listen to birds with an entirely new ear. I will never listen to the most common birds in the same way again. I'm hooked on listening to robins, red-eyed vireos, mockingbirds, well, for that matter, any bird that opens its bill to say something. And in the book there's listening to dogs, geysers, wind, rain, sleet, the simple sound of tires on pavement, the sound of labored breathing on an uphill. Our lives are an aural feast, if only we slow down to listen!Go to the website (listeningtoacontinentsing.com) and listen to your favorite birds, or your favorite location along the ten-state journey. I especially love listening to the "dawn chorus" section of the website, where I can hear birds awake in dawn singing as I sweep across the country.A very special book, one of a kind. Ten stars in my book!

This book would appeal to cyclists, birders, historians, parents. So many interesting aspects. The author bikes across the U.S, fully self contained, . with adult son and records sounds—not just birds but dogs, people in Appalachia, etc. The bird sounds are given a wonderful analysis, calling our attention to changes in the calls, conversations with other birds, difference within species between western and eastern of the same species. The book can be appreciated many times over.

Not good.