Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder
A Memoir
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Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder
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Narrated by:
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Nan McNamara
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By:
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Julia Zarankin
About this listen
When Julia Zarankin saw her first red-winged blackbird at the age of 35, she didn’t expect that it would change her life. Recently divorced and auditioning hobbies during a stressful career transition, she stumbled into birdwatching, initially out of curiosity for the strange breed of humans who wear multi-pocketed vests, carry spotting scopes, and discuss the finer points of optics with disturbing fervor. What she never could have predicted was that she would become one of them.
Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder follows the peregrinations of a narrator who learns more from birds than she ever anticipated, finding new meaning in midlife. Coming from a Russian immigrant family of concert pianists who believed that the outdoors were for “other people”, she recounts the challenges and joys of unexpectedly discovering one’s wild side and finding one’s tribe in the unlikeliest of places. Not only does she come to identify proudly as a birder, but birding ultimately leads her to find love, uncover a new language, and lay down roots. Her thoughtful and witty observations about that journey illuminate the joyful experience of discovery and offer keen insight into what it takes to find one’s place in the world.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 182
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4 out of 5 stars 162
Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
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Thunder and Lightning
- Cracking Open the Writer's Craft
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story5 out of 5 stars 47
The challenge we face as writers, Natalie Goldberg says, begins with the process of turning inward and then trying to communicate what we find. From the secret of letting characters and stories "write themselves" to finding mentor sources and responding to criticism to writing's one essential ingredient, which is the mind - here are all-new Zen-based lessons and reflections, refined and proven at Natalie's acclaimed national writers' workshops.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Inspiring
- By StoryDtechtive on 02-11-17
By: Natalie Goldberg
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The Mathematician's Shiva
- By: Stuart Rojstaczer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil, Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Lee Crowe on 07-27-15
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The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
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Martin Marten
- A Novel
- By: Brian Doyle
- Narrated by: Travis Baldree
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
Dave is 14 years old, living with his family in a cabin on Oregon's Mount Hood. Dave will soon enter high school, with adulthood and a future not far off - a future away from his mother, father, his precocious younger sister, and the wilderness where he's lived all his life. And Dave is not the only one approaching adulthood and its freedoms that summer. Martin, a pine marten (of the mustelid family), is leaving his own mother and siblings and setting off on his own as well. As Dave and Martin set off on their own adventures, their lives, paths, and trails will cross.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Captivated to the end
- By Sidney Dickson on 03-23-19
By: Brian Doyle
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Let's Take the Long Way Home
- A Memoir of Friendship
- By: Gail Caldwell
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 224
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Story4 out of 5 stars 145
In Let's Take the Long Way Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gail Caldwell offers a powerful and moving memoir about her coming-of-age in mid-life and her extraordinary friendship with Caroline Knapp, the author of Drinking: A Love Story. Though they are more different than alike, these two fiercely private, independent women quickly relax into a friendship more profound than either of them expected. They grow increasingly inseparable until, in 2003, Caroline is diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Uniquely wonderful book
- By Lucie on 09-07-10
By: Gail Caldwell
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All the Way to the Tigers
- By: Mary Morris
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
In February 2008 a casual afternoon of ice skating derailed the trip of a lifetime. Mary Morris was on the verge of a well-earned sabbatical, but instead she endured three months in a wheelchair, two surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation. On Easter Sunday, when she was supposed to be in Morocco, Morris was instead lying on the sofa reading Death in Venice, casting her eyes over these words again and again: "He would go on a journey. Not far. Not all the way to the tigers." Disaster shifted to possibility and Morris made a decision.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful Memoir
- By Janet G. Zinn on 07-05-21
By: Mary Morris
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The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
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5 out of 5 stars
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She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
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The Electricity of Every Living Thing
- A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home
- By: Katherine May
- Narrated by: Katherine May
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 132
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Story5 out of 5 stars 134
In anticipation of her 38th birthday, Katherine May set out to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path. She wanted time alone, in nature, to understand why she had stopped coping with everyday life; why motherhood had been so overwhelming and isolating; and why the world felt full of expectations she couldn't meet. She was also reeling from a chance encounter with a voice on the radio that sparked her realisation that she might be autistic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-20-22
By: Katherine May
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Lassoing the Sun
- A Year in America's National Parks
- By: Mark Woods
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
Many childhood summers, Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America's national parks. Mark's most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains, woods, and fireflies in places like Redwood, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon national parks. On the eve of turning 50, and a little burned out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks.
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3 out of 5 stars
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great narrator, lackluster story, wonderful themes
- By MT on 08-21-18
By: Mark Woods
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Manhood for Amateurs
- The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: Michael Chabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 240
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4 out of 5 stars 149
As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, and above all as a father, Chabon's memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, are like a theme played by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor. At once dazzling, hilarious, and moving, Manhood for Amateurs is destined to become a classic.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Terrible
- By Ken on 10-14-09
By: Michael Chabon
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Fault Lines
- A Novel
- By: Emily Itami
- Narrated by: Lydia Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 118
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
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Permission to Dream
- By: Chris Gardner, Mim Eichler Rivas
- Narrated by: Chris Gardner
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
On a winter’s day, Chris Gardner set off with his nine-year-old granddaughter Brooke to find the harmonica of her dreams. The search sends them North “beyond the wall” into a foreboding Chicago neighborhood and, soon, on a harrowing adventure that will change both of their lives - and ours.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thank you, Chris Gardner, for always inspiring us to dream
- By Mellissa Dowling on 10-17-22
By: Chris Gardner, and others
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 162
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Story4 out of 5 stars 158
Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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Little Matches
- A Memoir of Finding Light in the Dark
- By: Maryanne O'Hara
- Narrated by: Maryanne O'Hara
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story5 out of 5 stars 35
When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of two, Maryanne O'Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or be dead in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, Caitlin lost her battle with this devastating disease following an excruciating two-year wait on the transplant list and a last-minute race to locate a pair of healthy lungs. The sudden spiral of events left Maryanne in an existential crisis, searching to find an answer to the eternal question: Why we are here?
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5 out of 5 stars
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I don't know who needs to read it...
- By H. Hill on 04-18-23
By: Maryanne O'Hara
What listeners say about Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Red Tees
- 05-22-22
Made me feel better about all the birds I’ve missed
This is my favorite bird book, and I have read so very many. Finally a birder who is honest enough to discuss all the frustrations along with the moments of joy. I smiled throughout!!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-15-21
Wonderful book
Such a fantastic story from one birder to another. Loved every moment of it! Taught me a few things and gave me some lessons to bird by.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- D. A. Johnson
- 06-22-22
Not for me
This beautifully written and narrated book showed me that I am not a birder. Guys should be aware this is a book for women.
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