Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

A book that features birding

This is soooo timely! One of my fellow IRL book club members is a birder and I have been dying to tell her there is a book entitled Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb so I can ask her if that's true! LOL 😋

Lists that might help:
Birds and Birding
Ornithologists/Ornithology & Birdwatching in Fiction
Birding Big Year
Best Books for Birders
Young Ornithologists: Bird Watching, Falconry, etc. (Juvenile)
Big Year Birding List

Listopia: A book that features birding

I think A Dumb Birds Field Guide to the Worst Birds Ever could fit (or any book in the Field Guide to Dumb Birds series). I haven't read it yet, but it does have some information in a humorous way.A Dumb Birds Field Guide to the Worst Birds Ever

I'm going with Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper. He was in a viral video where he was bird-watching at a park and asked a woman to leash her dog. She threw a fit, said she was calling the police on him, "and I'll be sure to tell them you're Black." Fortunately he filmed it so everyone knew her version was a lie.

I'm buying it in hardback, because he should get something out of that crappy experience.

Laura Ruth wrote: "I'm going with Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper. He was in a viral video where he was bird-watching at a park and asked..."

I read that one a few years ago and it was very well-written. I hope you enjoy it.

Laura Ruth and I are on the same wavelength!!! This is what I had planned to post:

Those of you who live new NYC may remember the extremely privileged older white woman walking her dog in Central Park who went absolutely bonkers when she saw a Black man in the park, she called the cops and everything (all while practically strangling her poor dog). That man was Christian Cooper, and he later wrote Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World, and I've been wanting to read it. So maybe I'll read that.

If for some reason I cannot get that, I might read:
What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World
or
The Genius of Birds


All three have been on my TBR for a while and I'm excited at the push to finally read one.

I'm a birder myself and have What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds Are Doing, and Why on my TBR. I might consider finding some fiction on birding, though, depending what mood I'm in.

I like nature writing so I'm sure I can find something. I enjoyed Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other and The Circling Sky: On Nature and Belonging in an English Forest which are both about nature near where I live.

How much can I twist this to let me read The Bardic Voices Series by Mercedes Lackey? The books are all named after birds and I believe the bird naming theme runs throughout the stories themselves.


The Lark and the Wren
The Robin & The Kestrel
A Cast of Corbies
The Eagle & the Nightingales
Four & Twenty Blackbirds


I also totally forgot I was looking at The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. This also would fill in at least one other prompt with The Wild Robot Escapes or The Wild Robot Protects (2026 Popsugar Challenge 18: A love story that defies social boundaries, in that Roz loves and cares for her ward. There are more forms of love than just romantic).

Would Migrations work for this?

I am joining Laura Ruth and Nadine and reading Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. Thanks for informing me about this book. It sounds right up my alley.

I'm currently reading Tourist Season by Brynne Weaver and while it's dark romance with a lot of trigger warnings that MMC says that he is into birding and the FMC has trained a raven as her pet.

Sarah wrote: "Would Migrations work for this?"

I was thinking about this book fitting this category - I would say yes.... I loved this book FWIW.

Summer of Salt takes place on an island with a rare bird that attracts birders to visit every year. It’s a magical realism story

Sarah wrote: "Would Migrations work for this?"

Yes, 100%. I think that main character would refer to herself as a birder. I really liked that book, though of course it's sad.

Birding is something I'm getting increasingly interested in. I recently watched a Netflix mystery called The Residence about a detective who is also a birder, and it was really good, but I also thought it'd be cool to research birds at new locations and carry about a book, binoculars and checklist like she does. It's like having a bunch of little side-quests to take your mind off your main quest, so to speak.

I'm going to read Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

Denise wrote: "Birding is something I'm getting increasingly interested in. I recently watched a Netflix mystery called The Residence about a detective who is also a birder, and it was really good, but I also tho..."

Denise, I really loved that book. He talks a lot about birding, but also other topics. I was wondering how he was going to fill a book with that "incident", but the book just touches on that, but goes so much deeper! (And I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, which I highly recommend!)

I've still got some reading on my Goodreads goal of 125 books this year (25 to go!), and I have The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan (one of my favorite authors) on hold from my library, on Overdrive/Libby. She illustrated it herself, so I have to read it as an ebook. My plan was to use it for one of my personal Bonus Prompts, for "A book with a 25 letter title". I'll still use it this year for that, which leaves me open to read another book for the 2026 prompt. Yay! It's one of my favorite prompts next year.

If someone is looking for a fun little book about a curmudgeonly grandmother, her grandson, and a colony of penguins, How the Penguins Saved Veronica, by Hazel Prior, was good.

A fast book for the end of the year, if you get desperate, like I do, could be, Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater. (That one came up when I was looking for the Veronica book, but I've heard of it, so I added it to my TBR list).

I read the most beautiful book, H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald. I just added it to the listopia list. Although it's really about her relationship with one bird, so maybe not about birding, per se.

I found two options on my library audio app which sound interesting:

Birdgirl - a story of a young birder, environmentalist and diversity activist.

Birds as Individuals - a study of birds' personalities by a woman who bought a house in the English countryside and kept the doors open so she could live her life alongside her bird neighbours.

I did not actually like this book, but many other readers did, and it just occurred to me it DOES involve birding - the FMC's somewhat casual love interest is an ecologist studying declining bird populations in the area:

Awake in the Floating City

One not-totally-on-topic-but-enough-to-fit rec: Wilding.

It's the account of how a couple with land that had been used for farming decided to stop farming and re-wild it, and what has happened since. The book addresses a number of different aspects of the changes to the land, but including bird species that reappeared. But it's a really fantastic read.

And the cover fits too:

I think I'm going to read Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing by Lili Taylor (yes, the actress). It's a book of essays that seem to fit the prompt and is fairly short.

Has anyone read this? It is specifically about bird eggs but just wondering if birding is involved at all?

I am going to read by David Attenborough.

I'm going to try The Genius of Birds, which is on the more science research side of the topic.

Several years ago, a different challenge pushed me to read Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, and I found the author so compelling that all her books are on my radar now. I'm not sure if her other books will work for this prompt (though I'm definitely going to check!), but this one absolutely does.

Birds through Indigenous Eyes: Native Perspectives on Birds of the Eastern Woodlands is looking very good. Non-fiction about birds, as well as symbolic and spiritual meanings. An Own Voices book.

These books are not about birding but may have falconry playing a part. The Joe Pickett series by CJ Box sometimes includes Nate Romanowski. Nate is a falconer that sometimes assists Joe. Thought I would mention them as an option. I plan on reading H is for Hawk as it's been on my list for a long time. I'm also adding Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper to my list

Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaght - one I've had on kindle for awhile.

I'm going with

I can’t find a way to add these books to the Listopia list off my phone but both would work for this prompt:

Yours, Truly by Heather Vogel Frederick

Quagmire Tiarello Couldn’t Be Better by Mylisa Larsen

Cosmogyral wrote: "I'm going to try The Genius of Birds, which is on the more science research side of the topic."

Great choice! I read this a few years ago. Always amazed at how intelligent birds are.

I read by David Attenborough. Birds are so amazing and this book just increased my respect for birds even more.

I am going to read Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing. I wouldn't say I'm a bird watcher but one of my favorite parts of the hiking trail is listening to the birds and observing the types and colors. Can't tell you what most of them are except the sea birds but they are pretty. The premise of these essays seems to be to just pay attention to your surroundings and I agree with that sentiment

A few years ago I read The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession and absolutely loved it. I highly recommend for this category.

I know its a long shot, but can I pick "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman? There is a Bird Woman in that who can control any bird.

I am currently reading „The Summer Guests“ by Tess Gerritsen, sequel to „The Spy Coast,“ about a group of retired CIA agents solving cases in New England, and birdwatching happens to be one of their shared activities. It features in several scenes, not just mentioned in passing or so.
I don’t remember if the same was true for the first book, but I think it was mentioned there, too.

Just reading Everything Is Fine Here and the younger sister is interested in birding, to the point where she wants to be an ornithologist, and the older sister runs marathons. Now I'm so torn about where to out as I'd consider both hard to fill prompts! But thought I'd pass it along.

I read Compulsion by Meyer Levin for this prompt, but any of the (fiction or non-fiction) books about the Leopold and Loeb case would fit, because one of the murderers was really into ornithology as a hobby!

Nadine in NY wrote: "Laura Ruth and I are on the same wavelength!!! This is what I had planned to post:

Those of you who live new NYC may remember the extremely privileged older white woman walking her dog in Central ..."

His book was what automatically popped into my head when I saw this prompt.

Amazon has the Kindle on sale for under $5 periodically. How I got it. I decided to read one 'social justice' nonfic book per week this year, and that's on my list.

Although I'm rather indifferent to birds, I somehow have a bunch of books about them in my Kindle library:

As mentioned above, I have Christian Cooper's Better Living Through Birding, which I'll read for this prompt.

Helen Macdonald - H Is for Hawk. Also: Vesper Flights.

Margaret Renkl - The Comfort of Crows

Jonathan Meiburg - A Most Remarkable Creature. A book about a specific family of birds (caracaras), but Meiburg is a hard core birder.

Jon Dunn - The Glitter in the Green is more about hummingbirds in general, but it does cover ornithologists studying them, which is close enough to birding.

Jonathan Weiner - The Beak of the Finch, about how much science has learned about bird evolution since Charles Darwin's observations about them in Galapagos for On the Origin of Species.

In fact, the Darwin book could work for this prompt, since he was obviously an avid birder to arrive at his revolutionary theory.

Gerald Durrell - Any of his Corfu trilogy has him birding away.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring focuses mainly on observations of the effects of DDT and other chemicals on birds.

Would Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly work for this? One of the characters has a thing for birds and tells the protagonist about them. I think she even writes about them..

Be a Birder: The Joy of Birdwatching and How to Get Started

A chatty, lively book which would be a good start for anyone interested in getting into birdwatching. I like birds, but I am not a serious watcher; however, I think this would be a good book to take out and about with you.

I enjoyed Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. It was partly about birding, but also about being a gay Black Pagan nerd with a Star Trek obsession - my kind of person!

http://www.lauraruthloomis.com/whats-...

The Bitter End Birding Society sounds like it'll fit here.