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Join us for a multimedia book talk with New York Times-bestselling author Jennifer Ackerman, who will be speaking about her new book, The Bird Way. Book sales and a signing will follow. This event will be free and open to the public.
About the book: In The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think, Jennifer Ackerman offers a brilliant distillation of all the latest findings, opening up a new window on the bird way of life that radically shifts our understanding of the feathered friends who share our planet.
In gliding prose, Ackerman takes us on a tour of the latest science on bird talk, work, play, love, and parenting. We meet birds that give each other gifts and birds that steal, birds that dance and drum, birds that paint their nests or paint themselves, birds that make tools, birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders, and birds that summon playmates with a special call—which may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of human laughter.
In addition to the latest science, The Bird Way draws from Ackerman’s personal field observations and birdwatching around the world. From the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, Ackerman homes in on the odd ducks—and herons, and warblers, and vultures—whose novel behaviors reveal the striking cleverness and ingenuity to be found in the avian world.
"A brightly original book...Ackerman is a smooth writer; her presentation of ideas is deft, and her anecdotes are consistently engaging...[She] demonstrates bird science as an evolving discipline that is consistently fascinating"
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
About the author: Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science and nature for almost three decades. She is the author of eight books, including The Genius of Birds, which has been translated into twenty languages. Her articles and essays have appeared in Scientific American, National Geographic, The New York Times, and many other publications. Ackerman is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction, a Bunting Fellowship, and a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Jennifer Ackerman Photo Credit: Sofia Runarsdotter