Title: The Feather Thief Pdf Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
Author: Kirk Wallace Johnson
Published Date: 2019-04-23
Page: 336
“Fascinating . . . a complex tale of greed, deception, and ornithological sabotage.” —The New York Times Book Review“Fascinating from the first page to the last—you won’t be able to put it down.” —Southern Living“A fascinating book . . . the kind of intelligent reported account that alerts us to a threat and that, one hopes, will never itself be endangered.” —The Wall Street Journal“Thrilling . . . This book is The Orchid Thief for the fly-fishing and birding set.”—Paris Review, “Staff Picks”“Fascinating . . . a complex tale of greed, deception, and ornithological sabotage.” —The New York Times Book Review“[A] true-crime caper recounted with relish.” —O, The Oprah Magazine, “10 Titles to Pick Up Now”“Vivid and arresting . . . Johnson [is] a wonderfully assured writer.” —The Times (London)“One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever. . . . Johnson is an intrepid journalist . . . [with] a fine knack for uncovering details that reveal, captivate, and disturb.”—Christian Science Monitor“An uncommon book . . . [that] informs and enlightens. . . A heist story that manages to underline the enduring and continuing importance of natural history collections and their incredible value to science. We need more books like this one.” —Science“The best compliment I can give a nonfiction writer is that they make me care deeply about an obscure topic I would otherwise never have been interested in. That’s the case with Kirk Wallace Johnson’s The Feather Thief.” —Eva Holland, Outside, “The Best Summer Books”“A fascinating account of a bizarre crime . . . The Feather Thief is one of the more peculiar and gripping crime stories in recent memory.” —LitHub CrimeReads, “The Essential True Crime Books of Spring 2018” “A stirring examination of the devastating effects of human greed on endangered birds, a powerful argument for protecting our environment—and, above all, a captivating crime story.”—Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees“This gem of a book, about a heist of archival birds, is marvelous, moving, and transcendent. I can’t stop thinking about it.” —Dean King, author of Skeletons on the Zahara and The FeudKirk W. Johnson is the author of To Be a Friend Is Fatal and the founder of the List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. He is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the American Academy in Berlin, and the USC Annenberg Center.
“Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air
“One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor
A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief.
On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness.
Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
Captivating narrative and obscure facts seamlessly woven into an unlikely but true story that you won't be able to put down! I read this book over one weekend as I could hardly bear to put it down. The true crime story of Edwin Rist and his ill-conceived but actually successful heist is a story that is too unlikely to be fiction. In the midst of telling his story, Johnson needs to share extensive obscure background information with readers and does so in a way that continues to drive the fascinating narrative forward. A hard to classify genre, it reminded me in turns of the best of well-researched literary nonfiction (think Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot) mixed with a little self-deprecating narrator-turned-character in the vein of A.J. Jacobs, along with a too-crazy-to-be-true caper that even channels the Oceans 11 franchise. This is a unique and compelling book that should not be missed!Half a book would have been a blockbuster I loved the crazy nature of the crime and the way it was reported, including the background about the small group of fly-tiers, most of whom don't even fish, whose obsession provided the raison-d'être for a very bizarre crime. The crime was wrapped up about half-way through the book, so I wondered what the rest would entail. It turns out that the author spent time, energy and money on the un-asked-for pursuit of the birds that had not been accounted for by the authorities or by the museum from which they were stolen, both of whom assumed that most had been dismembered and sold as "parts." This mission has its moments, as the thief himself is interviewed at length, but, overall, this section is less satisfying. I'd give the first half of the book five stars, but the second half just two. IMPORTANT: When reading this book on the Kindle its not clear that there are many plates and illustrations at the end of the book showing the birds and the flies, along with pictures of the principals.A wonderland of information, The Feather Theif Wonderful well researched , well written book, could not put it down. As a lover of birds and nature it shows me again how wasteful and cruel humans can be in their search to make money. Thank God for all the people out there that support the and care for nature and remember to treat nature with reverence. Please buy this book, you will learn so much, it is money well spent , it is brain FOOD, thank you Daunn Munn
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