The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession
Mark Obmascik,
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451648607
Summary
Every January 1, a quirky crowd storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year—a grand, expensive, and occasionally vicious 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would become a grueling battle for a new North American birding record.
Bouncing from coast to coast on frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities, they brave broiling deserts, bug-infested swamps, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man. This unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a record so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested.
Here, prizewinning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a dazzling, fun narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to win the greatest—or maybe worst—birding contest of all time. (From the publisher.)
More
Now reissued to tie in to the 2011 major motion picture release from 20th Century Fox starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, the critically heralded book by award-winning journalist Mark Obmascik—“a feathered version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World ” ( Outside ).
With engaging, unflappably wry humor, The Big Year re-creates the grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, “extreme” 365-day contest for a new North American birdwatching record. In this thrilling real-life adventure, three men battle the daunting forces of nature—and each other—in their whirlwind 275,000-mile odyssey from Texas to British Columbia, Cape May to Alaska. One of them achieves an astonishing record unlikely ever to be bested.
A captivating tour of human and avian nature, passion and paranoia, honor and deceit, fear and loathing, The Big Year shows the lengths to which people will go to pursue their dreams, to conquer and categorize—no matter how low the stakes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Mark Obmascik is the bestselling author of Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled—and Knuckleheaded—Quest for the Rocky Mountain High, winner of the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature, and The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, which received five Best of 2004 citations by major media. The Big Year movie, with Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson, was released in 2011. Obmascik was lead writer for the Denver Post team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and winner of the 2003 National Press Club award for environmental journalism. He lives in Denver with his wife, Merrill Schwerin, and their three sons, Cass, Max, and Wesley. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
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.
Publishers Weekly
Environmental journalist Obmascik follows the 1998 Big Year's three main competitors.... Their drive to win propelled all three past the rarified count of 700 species seen, and the winner saw an extraordinary 745 species—a number that will probably never be equaled.... With a blend of humor and awe, Obmascik takes the reader into the heart of competitive birding, and in the process turns everyone into birders. Nancy Bent
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Big Year:
1. Talk about the personalities of the three characters—Sandy Komita, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller. What is it that drives each man to attempt The Big Year competition...and why their fierce desire to win it? Do you admire these men for their passion or raise your eyebrows at their fanaticism?
2. Talk about the physical dangers the men undergo, as well as the damage to their bodies ("warbler" and "binocular" neck)...even their poor dietary habits. Would you call this an "unhealthy" possession (physically or mentally)?
3. Mascik provides detailed explanations about birds, birding and the Big Year competition. Does his information enhance the book for you...is it interesting and informative? Or is it overly detailed...a distraction from an otherwise fast-paced narrative?
4. Is there a particular species—its habits and habitat—that caught your interest? Perhaps the ruby-throated hummingbird, the Baird sparrow, or Colima Warbler?
5. Talk about the different locales the men traveled to for their various bird sitings. Which would you have found the most difficult to endure...or which the most intriguing? Would you ever want to make any one of those treks?
6. What did you think of the"hokey pokey" (p. 151) or reference to the "Dukes of Hurl"? Did those bring a laugh? What other parts of the book did you find humorous?
7. Talk about the competition's ethical code, particularly the rarity of cheating. What impressed you the most about how the competitors adhered to the code of honor?
8. Were you a birder before you read this book? If so, what have you learned? If you weren't a birder before, does the book inspire you to take up the hobby?
9. Of the three characters, whom were you rooting for most? Did you have a premonition as to who would win...or did the author keep you guessing?
10. Have you seen the movie adaptation of The Big Year? If so, how does it compare with the book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
