Overview
āA miraculous little book: a compressed encyclopedia of our fascination with avifauna.ā
āThe Nation
āA charming, funny, and eccentric book.ā
āTimes Literary Supplement
āAn elegant tribute to the beauty of its subject.ā
āLos Angeles Times
Birds 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 āprofuse strains of unpremeditated art.ā 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: āCuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-wooā) and ornithologists have transcribed bird sounds more methodically. Drawing on this history of bird writing, in Aaaaw to Zzzzzd 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 āhooā 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 āhere, here, come right here, dearā and the yellowhammer saying āa little bit of bread and no cheese.ā Bevis, a poet, frames his lexiconsāone for North America and one for Britain and northern Europeāwith 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 birdsongāfield 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. Aaaaw to Zzzzzd belongs in the bird lover's backpack and on the word lover's bedside table, an unexpected and sui generis pleasure.
This book title, Aaaaw to Zzzzzd: The Words of Birds (North America, Britain, and Northern Europe), ISBN: 9780262014298, by John Bevis, published by MIT Press (August 20, 2010) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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