As a birder of many years this book attracted me. I am aware of the twitcher group, but have never been drawn to it. I have met twitchers and the characters in this book drew very little from reality. I found that none of them had any depth to them. I could not identify with them, love or loath them, they lacked substance. While the constant list of ticked-off birds was interesting and well researched, I wonder what it would mean to a non-birder. Probably little and could well become tedious. Altogether I feel I can only recommend this as a holiday read or to any anti-twitchers who want to reassure themselves that what those people do is close to a demonic cult.

Reviewed by Richard Montagu
April 08, 2014 17:20