The Gifting Birds: Toward an Art of Having Place and Being Animal

From Library Journal Not as esoteric as the title would imply, this is a collection of personal reminis cences, part autobiography, part quasi- natural history. The basic premise is that man is merely one of the many bio logical expressions of the animal world, a ``human animal'' whose niche, the earth, is a constantly fluctuating, changing environment. From illustra tions of the people he has known, but mostly through his experience of vari ous places and countries, the author seeks to develop an aesthetics of place and an art concerned with solitude and humanity compatible with his view of life. Along with a few fetching insights and expressions, there are the lapses into inconclusive meanderings that this sort of earthbound reflection is prone to. For larger collections. Carol J. Lichtenberg, Washington State Univ. Lib., PullmanCopyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.