In her luminous third book, The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl (Graceland, at Last; Late Migrations) takes readers through the details of a year in her Nashville neighborhood. Elegant, lucid essays follow the changing seasons, Renkl musing on the migratory and nesting patterns of birds, the encroaching effects of climate change, her own evolving family structure, and the incremental shifts of flora, fauna, and light. "Here is the world I need," Renkl writes, "a world that exists far beyond the impulse to scroll and scroll." The Comfort of Crows, lavishly illustrated with mixed-media collages by her brother, Billy Renkl, invites readers to explore the details of nesting bluebirds, maple trees, garden grubs, sunsets, and Renkl's affection for the birds of the book's title. Though she acknowledges crows' association with death, she also insists that they are "smart and brave and loyal." As she enters a new year, Renkl "cling[s] to the crow's promise of metamorphosis."
Beginning in winter, when many plants are dormant, Renkl nonetheless proves that her nearby landscape is very much alive. Ailing foxes, hungry birds, sunbathing turtles, and her own dog's "Marvelous Nose" remind Renkl and her readers to pay attention to winter's denizens. As the calendar turns toward spring, Renkl records various birdsongs, the shifting light and weather, and her own impatience with waiting for warmer days.
The Comfort of Crows celebrates the beauty and durability of nature's age-old cycles and the habits of wild creatures, and it urges human beings to care for these same creatures--before some of them disappear altogether. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams