From Booklist
Birds have been important in human cultures from earliest times. That continues today with the popularity of birding (bird-watching) and the rise of ecotourism around the world. There are approximately 10,500 bird species in the world, and many of them have significant relationships to people—food, recreation, art, origin stories, research, and religion, to name a few. Hundreds of birders from around the world flocked together to assist Cocker via stories and observations, building this fascinating compilation of significant human-bird relationships. Entries represent 146 bird families, while another 59 families with no known cultural importance are listed in an appendix. Tipling’s photographs (and others) supplement the text with beautiful images and informative content. This is both a reference book and a book to be read for enjoyment. The quotations, extensive bibliography, detailed endnotes, and indexes (species and general) provide access beyond the family-group arrangement of the text. Readers will learn fascinating facts: humans have long adorned themselves with feathers and imitated avian dances; swallow nests near homes are symbols of natural blessings in many countries; rollers have capitalized on human structures as perches from which to hunt insects. This thoughtful and handsome book records many of the stories that bind humans and birds together in the environment they share. Recommended for most public and academic libraries. --Linda Scarth
Review
"Plenty of books tell us how birds live and what they look and sound like, but none has ever told us as well or so beautifully how we have co-evolved with them or what those birds have meant and mean to us. . . . It is, indeed, an astonishing achievement. I feel I could live from its pages for years: they are rich and sustaining and magically suggestive at the same time. Reading them, you just might find yourself growing your own pair of wings." —BBC Wildlife Magazine
"...groundbreaking." —The BirdBooker Report
"A delightful duet between nature writer Mark Cocker and wildlife photographer David Tipling." —Nature
"If ever a book was timely, it is this gorgeously produced 600-page compendium of ornithological facts, images, myths and narratives . . . A celebration of birdlife, informed by that mixed sense of wonder and careful inquiry that Cocker has called 'the poetry of fact.'" —New Statesman
"Written with grace, conscientious stewardship and unfettered love, the book is a transformative look at the feathered dinosaurs that, despite all we have done to them, still grace our fields, forests and skies . . . an encyclopedia with a heart." —Julie Zickefoose, Wall Street Journal
"Packed with beauty, curiosity, fascination and wonder on every page, Birds & People is probably best not wolfed down but savoured bit by bit. It is a truly exceptional work, soaring in its scope, boundless in its interest, with an ambition matched only by its achievement . . . [it] strikes me as the sort of masterpiece that only comes along once or twice a decade." —Mail on Sunday
"Birds & People is primarily a way of looking at our own complex history, through the prism of nature. It is also a beautiful volume, not least because of David Tipling's excellent photographs . . . The results are stunning." —Sunday Telegraph
"An inexhaustibly rich collection of ornithology, folklore, and etymology that will appear to more than just bird lovers ... One simply runs out of superlatives appraising this title. From its glorious photography to its astonishingly wide frame of cultural references, this book will long resonate with readers." —
Library Journal, starred review
"Focusing on our plumed friends' role in folklore, mythology, and menus, this book beautifully captures a centuries-old interspecies relationship." — mental_floss
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