A review by andrewspink
Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery by Dorian Anderson
adventurous
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
3.5
I love cycling and I love nature (why isn't my hashtag #BotanicalMountainBiking more used?) so, at first glance, this was a book that could have been written just for me. It started talking about lapwings, one of my favourite birds and (as a European) one that I am very familiar with and, despite its iridescent plumage, find hard to imagine being exotic. The vast majority of the other birds mentioned were unknown names to me, but I did enjoy when the author didn't just list them but told us a bit about them as well.
The cycling aspect was also interesting. He started as pretty much a novice, so I was left wondering why he didn't try out the clip-on pedals first, why he hadn't trained even a little for this and why he couldn't have got himself better tyres to avoid all the punctures. But maybe that comes down to American roads. I lived a couple of years in Illinois, and the locals thought I was bonkers for cycling to work. The shouted abuse, car horns and rubbish at the side of the road were all very familiar. I was even stopped by the police once because a car driver had complained that I was cycling on the road rather than on the (rubbish-filled) grass verge. As it happens, I had taken my Illinois driving test the week before and had to inform the police that it was actually illegal for me to cycle on the verge. It reminded me how lucky we are to have decent cycling infrastructure here, and also the luxury of not being scared of violent locals if we cycle on back roads.
The book had a third theme, alcoholism. That felt a little crowded. Although the three aspects are all very interconnected, that did mean that the focus was sometimes lost as the author switched from one thing to another. The book is also an autobiography, and of course, with every autobiography you are left wondering how reliable the narrative is. What has been left out and what has been exaggerated. When describing his scientific work, the author uses quite a lot of scientific terminology and in some places I got the impression that he was trying to impress the reader with his erudition, rather than explain matters. He assumes that readers know what the dendrites and axon of a neuron are - or does he expect them to google it? As a biologist, I could follow it all, but I can imagine that some readers will feel forced to skip those paragraphs.
The prose is mostly fairly straightforward. Some of the phrases are a bit bizarre ("conversation flowed as freely as urine" was very odd), but it was all quite readable.
The twin theme of cycling and 'twitching' reminded me of Lief Bersweden's book 'Where the wildflowers grow'. Although Dorian Anderson's book doesn't have the wonderful quality of prose of Bersweden, it is still a worthwhile and enjoyable read, and his personal struggle and ultimate success in relation to his addiction has the potential to inspire those suffering from similar problems.
Acknowledgment: This review is based on a free pre-publication copy of the book obtained from the publisher via the Netgalley platform, in return for an honest review.
The cycling aspect was also interesting. He started as pretty much a novice, so I was left wondering why he didn't try out the clip-on pedals first, why he hadn't trained even a little for this and why he couldn't have got himself better tyres to avoid all the punctures. But maybe that comes down to American roads. I lived a couple of years in Illinois, and the locals thought I was bonkers for cycling to work. The shouted abuse, car horns and rubbish at the side of the road were all very familiar. I was even stopped by the police once because a car driver had complained that I was cycling on the road rather than on the (rubbish-filled) grass verge. As it happens, I had taken my Illinois driving test the week before and had to inform the police that it was actually illegal for me to cycle on the verge. It reminded me how lucky we are to have decent cycling infrastructure here, and also the luxury of not being scared of violent locals if we cycle on back roads.
The book had a third theme, alcoholism. That felt a little crowded. Although the three aspects are all very interconnected, that did mean that the focus was sometimes lost as the author switched from one thing to another. The book is also an autobiography, and of course, with every autobiography you are left wondering how reliable the narrative is. What has been left out and what has been exaggerated. When describing his scientific work, the author uses quite a lot of scientific terminology and in some places I got the impression that he was trying to impress the reader with his erudition, rather than explain matters. He assumes that readers know what the dendrites and axon of a neuron are - or does he expect them to google it? As a biologist, I could follow it all, but I can imagine that some readers will feel forced to skip those paragraphs.
The prose is mostly fairly straightforward. Some of the phrases are a bit bizarre ("conversation flowed as freely as urine" was very odd), but it was all quite readable.
The twin theme of cycling and 'twitching' reminded me of Lief Bersweden's book 'Where the wildflowers grow'. Although Dorian Anderson's book doesn't have the wonderful quality of prose of Bersweden, it is still a worthwhile and enjoyable read, and his personal struggle and ultimate success in relation to his addiction has the potential to inspire those suffering from similar problems.
Acknowledgment: This review is based on a free pre-publication copy of the book obtained from the publisher via the Netgalley platform, in return for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Alcoholism