Kest S. (kesterbird) reviewed Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird on + 28 more book reviews
This isn't so much a book as it is a loose conglomeration of marginally organized facebook rants. I got it as part of librarything's early review program- if I had just picked it up, I woulda given up during the part where the author, who has no understanding of archeology, tried to justify a theory that human culture wouldn't exist were it not for vultures. As is, I pushed through that, and it DID get slightly better, btu then things would go downhill for long segments.
I picked the book up because I LIKE vultures, and I wanted to learn something about them. I did lear n a few things, but mostly I got scolded for not liking vultures. There's a lot of scolding in here.
There's a long scene in which the author is driving along a road next to a windfarm, and she sets her cruise control so that she can give all her attention to watching raptors not get hit by turbine blades. She describes herself shreiking aloud in her empty car when there are near misses. She does not describe the near misses that no doubt occurred between her car and various woodchucks/squirrels/etc, because she didn't notice those- she was busy watching the vultures. She also doesn't bother mentioning the statistics for how many vultures are hit by cars while dining on roadkill.
That passage stuck in my mind most, but there's a lot of that sort of thing- very focused rants that last far too long and which are clearly responses to -something- but the something wasn't printed in the book.
The strongest parts of the book are when she introducing various scientists and their work- these people are enthusiastic, our author is enthusiastic, and while we are being told about the science, we get to actually learn things about the vultures that this book purports to be about.
I picked the book up because I LIKE vultures, and I wanted to learn something about them. I did lear n a few things, but mostly I got scolded for not liking vultures. There's a lot of scolding in here.
There's a long scene in which the author is driving along a road next to a windfarm, and she sets her cruise control so that she can give all her attention to watching raptors not get hit by turbine blades. She describes herself shreiking aloud in her empty car when there are near misses. She does not describe the near misses that no doubt occurred between her car and various woodchucks/squirrels/etc, because she didn't notice those- she was busy watching the vultures. She also doesn't bother mentioning the statistics for how many vultures are hit by cars while dining on roadkill.
That passage stuck in my mind most, but there's a lot of that sort of thing- very focused rants that last far too long and which are clearly responses to -something- but the something wasn't printed in the book.
The strongest parts of the book are when she introducing various scientists and their work- these people are enthusiastic, our author is enthusiastic, and while we are being told about the science, we get to actually learn things about the vultures that this book purports to be about.
