graeme gibson's flights of fancy

Graeme Gibson was in town yesterday with his new book, The Bedside Book of Birds: an Avian Miscellany. The acclaimed author of Communion, Perpetual Motion and Gentleman Death (and spouse of Margaret Atwood), talked to me over calamari and Glenmorangie at my favorite haunt, Victoria's. We have a shared interest in parrots - I have a cockatoo, he once had an Amazon parrot - so more than an hour and a half didn't seem nearly enough time to talk about his gorgeous book and all things avian.

"Humans developed as a species in a world full of birds," writes Gibson in his forward.

This book . . . isn't so much about birds themselves as it is about the richly varied and sometimes very intimate relationships that we have established with them during the hundreds of thousands of years that we and they have shared life on earth."

The Bedside Book of Birds is a richly textured mix of illustration, prose and poetry that is uplifting, thought-provoking and sometimes a little dark. Perfect not only for bird fanciers but for fans of literate writing. I read it cover-to-cover but recommend keeping it someplace central, so you can dip into it whenever the fancy strikes.