Book 1 - Jonathan Franzen "The End of the End of the Earth"

[jazzy_dave]

Jonathan Franzen "The End of the End of the Earth" (Picador)

Actually, I finished reading this paperback the day before New Yer's Eve but left it in the word prcessing document and forgot about it until I checked this morning. So it should have ben tacked to last year's challemge. Nonethelss it can start this year's challenge which i will keep to a hundred.

So, enough of that and on to the book itself. Now I have heard that Franzen can to be the most divisive of all living authors and that he is abrasive and highly-opinionated but so are many artists.

I wanted to try his essay work and when I learned that he was such an avid “birder”, I knew I wanted to try this collection. There are birds galore here, so I was not disappointed. Sadly, many of these pieces deal with the destruction of birds and their habitat, (the numbers are truly staggering). Reading these essays are enough to make you weep. That said, his passion and joy watching and discovering birds, helped balance his well-documented rants.

He also loves books, so a few of these essays also deal with authors and literature, which obviously I can also relate to. This collection is not for everyone and it was not perfect but, if any of those topics hold any interest, give it a try.