Better Living Through Birding Notes From A Black Man In The Natural World Christian Cooper by Christian Cooper 9780593242384, 0593242386 instant download after payment.

 
"Wondrous . . . captivating.”— Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Immense World

Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd” (Black nerd), an avid comics fan & expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City.

While in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the birdwatching ritual that had been a part of his life since he was 10 years old when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Cooper’s viral video of the incident would send shock waves through the nation.

In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park & shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today.

From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world & invites you to discover them yourself.

Equal parts memoir, travelogue, & primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim & defend space for himself & others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid & life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, & the Himalayas.

Better Living Through Birding recounts Cooper’s journey through the wonderful world of birds & what they can teach us about life, if only we would look & listen.