{"product_id":"the-bedside-book-of-birds-an-avian-miscellany-9780385514835","title":"The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this stunning assemblage of words and images  novelist and avid birdwatcher Graeme Gibson has crafted an extraordinary tribute to the venerable relationship between humans and birds.  Birds have ever been the symbols of our highest aspirations. As divine messengers  symbols of our yearning for the heavens  or avatars of glorious song and colour  they have stirred our imaginations from the moment we first looked into the sky. Whether as the Christian dove  or Quetzalcoatlthe Aztec Plumed Serpentor in Platos vision of the human soul growing wings and feathers  religion and philosophy have looked to birds as representatives of our better selvesthat part of us not bound to the earth.  With the passion of a birdwatcher and hoarder of words  Gibson has spent fifteen years collecting the literary and artistic forms our affinity for birds has taken over the centuries. Birds appear again and again in mythology and folk tales  and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid  Thomas Hardy  Kafka  Thoreau and T.S. Eliot. Theyve been omens  allegories  disguises and guides; theyve been worshipped  eaten  feared and loved. Nor does Gibson forget the fascination they hold for science  as the Galapagos finches did for Darwin. Birds figure charmingly and tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White  Peter Matthiessen  Farley Mowat and Barry Lopez.  Gorgeously illustrated  woven from centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes  The Bedside Book of Birds is for anyone who is aware of birds  and for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity has created to represent its soul.  From The Bedside Book of Birds   Stevenson remembered the story of a monk who had been distracted from his copy-work by the song of a bird. He went into the garden to listen more closely  and when he returned  after what he thought were only a few minutes  he discovered that a century had gone by  that his fellow monks were dead and his ink had turned to dust. The song of the bird had given him a taste of Paradise  where an instant is as a hundred years of earthly time. Was the same true of time in hell  Stevenson asked himself.  Alberto Manguel\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45953201078325,"sku":"ByrdShop_0385514832","price":22.32,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780385514835.jpg?v=1788181421","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-bedside-book-of-birds-an-avian-miscellany-9780385514835","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}