Garret Vin's photographs in The Living Bird are captivating--a flock of red-winged blackbirds against an azure Midwestern sky, a Lapland longspur on a bright patch of moss the exact shade of its beak, a yellow-billed loon alighting on a northern lake--but the essays are equally as enchanting. In the foreword, Barbara Kingsolver escapes childhood resistance to her father's passion for birds when she moves to the "biologically hostile" Arizona desert, only to experience Christmas Bird Counts with her ornithologist husband. John Fitzpatrick extrapolates how "migratory birds represent a true 'heartbeat' of our planet's natural cycles." Scott Weidensaul explains migratory flight patterns, regional dialects of sound and nest architecture. Lyanda Lynn Haupt believes that "birds are unique in offering us ready access to... wild wisdom," teaching us when to harvest, sing and be silent. Still, the images of birds remain the true stars here. --Kristen Galles from Book Club Classics