Monday, August 12, 2013

Mailbox Monday - August 12



Mailbox Monday is a touring meme, and is hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion in August.  It's one of my favorite ways to find new bloggers to follow and new books to read.

I have two new books that I am very excited to read.



The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, by Mark Obmascik



Heres' the Publisher's Weekly blurb from Amazon:
In one of the wackiest competitions around, every year hundreds of obsessed bird watchers participate in a contest known as the North American Big Year. Hoping to be the one to spot the most species during the course of the year, each birder spends 365 days racing around the continental U.S. and Canada compiling lists of birds, all for the glory of being recognized by the American Birding Association as the Big Year birding champion of North America. In this entertaining book, Obmascik, a journalist with the Denver Post, tells the stories of the three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: a wisecracking industrial roofing contractor from New Jersey who aims to break his previous record and win for a second time; a suave corporate chief executive from Colorado; and a 225-pound nuclear power plant software engineer from Maryland. Obmascik bases his story on post-competition interviews but writes so well that it sounds as if he had been there every step of the way. In a freewheeling style that moves around as fast as his subjects, the author follows each of the three birding fanatics as they travel thousands of miles in search of such hard-to-find species as the crested myna, the pink-footed goose and the fork-tailed flycatcher, spending thousands of dollars and braving rain, sleet, snowstorms, swamps, deserts, mosquitoes and garbage dumps in their attempts to outdo each other. By not revealing the outcome until the end of the book, Obmascik keeps the reader guessing in this fun account of a whirlwind pursuit of birding fame. 
I just watched the movie, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson and have decided to become a birder as well.  I got my list of Birds of Boulder County checklist, dusted off the binoculars and am ready to become obsessed.

How to Make an American Quilt - A Novel, by Whitney Otto




The stories of the lives of the women who constitute a sewing circle...that's all I know about it, other than it was also made into a movie that people seem to like...a lot.

I enjoy quilting off and on, and this happens to be an on year, so I am currently working on my fourth quilt since March!   



13 comments:

  1. I bet The Big Year is great! Good luck with the bird watching.

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  2. Enjoy! your books.

    http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/08/mailbox-monday_12.html

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  3. With a cast of Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, how can you go wrong! Hope you have a great week.

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  4. How to Make an American Quilt looks like fun. Although I've never heard of the movie, but do remember when The Big Year was released as one.

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  5. I was trying to remember why The Big Year was sounding so familiar - and then you mentioned the movie & the penny dropped. The book sounds great - I'll have to look for that.

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  6. Re: The Big Year - I saw the movie (enjoyed it!) and didn't realize it was based on a book. I bet the book is great too!

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  7. The Big Year really sounds like a lot of fun. I have not seen the film but at the very least I will try to watch it. Iy has such a great cast.

    I am in no way qualified to call myself a birder. But I have spend a fair amount of time outdoors and do attempt to identify various species that I observe. Great fun indeed!

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    1. It is definitely a fun movie--I've found that I am good at differentiating the different water birds (at least those found in Colorado), but am hopeless when it comes to the warblers, wrens, finches, etc.

      BTW, I enjoy Steve Martin's banjo playing and have his first CD, Rare Bird Alert...which makes me think he must be a birder himself, seeing that he did the movie and named his album thusly.

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  8. I love your Mailbox Monday photo....so pretty.

    ENJOY your books.

    Elizabeth
    Silver's Reviews
    My Mailbox Monday

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  9. We just watched The Big Year last week - my youngest son loves the movie, and has watched it several times now. It is a family-friendly movie, and funny. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for the book - now I know which one it is to get.

    Birder - I don't keep count of the birds I see here, but I do notice them and try to keep track of the exciting ones. I once saw a Baltimore oriole here! We live by a bird sanctuary, so get quite a few interesting birds passing through some years. Have fun, Jane!! It's a fun hobby to have.

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  10. I loved watching the birds at my feeder, especially when we had a ton of snow and we saw types of birds we'd never seen her before. I hope you enjoy your new hobby...and your new books!

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    1. *here* before, I meant to say. Oops!

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