2020 book: Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave...

[thistlechaser]

Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by John Marzluff Ph.D., Tony Angell
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Usually when I rate a book dislike or hated, it's because it's a bad book. Poorly written, poorly edited, unrealistic story, etc. But in this case, this book was none of that. It was a very good book, well-written, full of details. I was just not the target audience for it.

Nonfiction (which I so rarely read), it spent the first 10% (about an hour of reading) covering the physical structures of a crow's brain. To be honest, before this book I hadn't even known that this level of detail of a crow's brain exited at all.

The rest of the book continued in that trend. Ultra-dry (to me), it was like reading a text book from college. I do like crows a lot (I have a group I feed every day), but this was just too heavy of a book for me.

This book was a gift from my mother, she spent a lot of time trying to find one I would like. I so appreciate her effort, and I really wanted to finish it, but I have to give up and admit it's not for me.

I got to about the 25% point, but a lot of that was skimming, and I skipped a big part of the brain section.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in this book: 25%
Previous abandoned book total: NA
New total: 25%

Comments

[jeane nevarez (from livejournal.com)]

That happens to me- I find a nonfiction book that looks really informative but I just can't read it, too dense or too technical or just a boring writing style. They don't have to entertain me, but I need to at least stay interested! You should try Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah I wish this one had had more stories mixed in. Didn't need to be in depth tales, just something to keep my interest.

Thanks! I'll put it on my To Read list!