{"product_id":"aaaaw-to-zzzzzd-the-words-of-birds-isbn-9780262014298","title":"Aaaaw to Zzzzzd: The Words of Birds","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe distinctive and amazing songs and calls of birds: a meditation and a lexicon.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A miraculous little book: a compressed encyclopedia of our fascination with avifauna.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Nation\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A charming, funny, and eccentric book.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An elegant tribute to the beauty of its subject.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Los Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBirds sing and call, sometimes in complex and beautiful arrangements of notes, sometimes in one-line repetitions that resemble a ringtone more than a symphony. Listening, we are stirred, transported, and even envious of birds' ability to produce what Shelley called “profuse strains of unpremeditated art.” And for hundreds of years, we have tried to write down what we hear when birds sing. Poets have put birdsong in verse (Thomas Nashe: “Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo”) and ornithologists have transcribed bird sounds more methodically. Drawing on this history of bird writing, in \u003ci\u003eAaaaw to Zzzzzd\u003c\/i\u003e John Bevis offers a lexicon of the words of birds. For tourists in Birdland, there could be no more charming phrasebook. Consulting it, we find seven distinct variations of “hoo” attributed to seven different species of owls, from a simple hoo to the more ambitious hoo hoo hoo-hoo, ho hoo hoo-hoo; the understated cheet of the tree swallow; the resonant kreeaaaaaaaaaaar of the Swainson's hawk; the modest peep peep peep of the meadow pipit. We learn that some people hear the Baltimore oriole saying “here, here, come right here, dear” and the yellowhammer saying “a little bit of bread and no cheese.” Bevis, a poet, frames his lexicons—one for North America and one for Britain and northern Europe—with an evocative appreciation of birds, birdsong, and human attempts to capture the words of birds in music and poetry. He also offers an engaging account of other methods of documenting birdsong—field recording, graphic notation, and mechanical devices including duck calls and the serinette, an instrument used to teach song tunes to songbirds. The singing of birds is nature at its most sublime, and words are our medium for expressing this sublimity. \u003ci\u003eAaaaw to Zzzzzd\u003c\/i\u003e belongs in the bird lover's backpack and on the word lover's bedside table, an unexpected and sui generis pleasure.\u003c\/p\u003e[A]n evocative appreciation of birds, birdsong, and human attempts to capture the words of birds in music and poetry. \u003ci\u003eAaaaw to Zzzzzd\u003c\/i\u003e belongs in the bird lover's backpack and on the word lover's bedside table, an unexpected and sui generis pleasure.—\u003ci\u003eNortheastern Naturalist\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book is so much more than just a list of bird sounds...[It] provides an interesting overview of how humans have attempted to represent birdsong over the centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003ci\u003eIBIS\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eA charming, funny, and eccentric book.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut once the walk is clear and you're inside and warming up with a cup of hot chocolate, you can get a foretaste of spring with a peculiarly charming book from MIT Press: \u003ci\u003eAaaaw to Zzzzzd: The Words of Birds\u003c\/i\u003e...\u003ci\u003eAaaaw to Zzzzzd: The Words of Birds\u003c\/i\u003e does what we hope all books will do (and which not all manage to accomplish): it opens a window on a world that has been right alongside us, yet unexplored, and gives us the vocabulary to understand and discuss it with a newly awakened appreciation for its wonders.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003cb\u003eErin McKean\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe \"Ideas\"\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAaaaw to Zzzzzd\u003c\/i\u003e is a miraculous little book: a compressed encyclopedia of our fascination with avifauna.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003cb\u003eAnge Mlinko\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eMr. Bevis compares his experience of hearing the sound of birds, 'unhindered in its rawness and potency,' to the way he hears the Lieder of Schubert and Schumann in German, a language that he does not speak but that still communicates to him in some unquantifiable way. 'We cannot ground the emotions we hear in any birdland rationality,' he asserts. What birds give us is—as Shelley wrote in 'To a Skylark'—'profuse strains of unpremeditated art.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003cb\u003eAlexander Theroux\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis gorgeous little book is a lexicon of bird words, the most plausible notation of sounds that often have dozens of phonic interpretations...This book is an elegant tribute to the beauty of its subject.\u003c\/p\u003e—\u003cb\u003eSusan Salter Reynolds\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e—John Bevis is a writer, poet, and book artist living in London.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302328652005,"sku":"NP9780262014298","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262014298.jpg?v=1767720950","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/aaaaw-to-zzzzzd-the-words-of-birds-isbn-9780262014298","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}