In 1997, Jonathan Meiburg received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to travel to remote communities around the world, a year-long journey that sparked his enduring fascination with islands, birds, and the deep history of the living world. Since then, he's written reviews, features, and interviews for print and online publications including The Believer, The Talkhouse, and The Appendix on subjects ranging from a hidden exhibit hall at the American Museum of Natural History to the last long-form interview with author Peter Matthiessen. But he's best known as the leader of the band Shearwater, whose albums and performances have often been praised by NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Pitchfork. He lives in central Texas.
ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“A fascinating, entertaining, and totally engrossing story of these
under-appreciated birds, deftly intertwining natural history and
human history, and with insights and lessons that go far beyond the
subject birds.”—David Sibley, author of What It's Like to Be a
Bird
“Caracaras are not like other birds, or even other birds of prey.
Curious, wide-ranging, gregarious, and intelligent, the ten species
of caracara are a scientific puzzle that has intrigued biologists
since the days of Darwin. And this book--as curious, wide-ranging,
gregarious, and intelligent as its subject--is not like any other
book that I have encountered. A Most Remarkable Creature is not
only about a bird, but about the community of people that has
formed, almost accidentally, around the bird, and beyond that about
humankind itself.”—Charles C. Mann, author of 1491
“If caracaras were able to read—and immersing myself in Mr.
Meiburg’s vivid prose I sometimes fancied they just might be—this
book would give them a lot of information about that exceptional
creature named Jonathan Meiburg.”—Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street
Journal
“Like travel itself, A Most Remarkable Creature is more journey
than destination. While Meiburg seems disinclined toward
environmental preaching, he does want to ignite our curiosity. The
book elegantly reminds us that we cheat ourselves when we
underestimate creatures we have deemed low, annoying or
common.”—Karen Sandstrom, The Washington Post
“Meiburg's voice is poetic; where other nature writers are known
for the images they paint of landscapes, here are presented
impressions, concepts as complex as species' movements over
geologic time, in a way that is at once clear and beautiful.”—Anna
Morris, NPR.org
“Gorgeously written and sophisticated, Jonathan Meiburg's book
about a wickedly clever falcon will move readers to protect this
truly remarkable creature.”—BookPage, “Best Nonfiction of 2021”
“To call this a bird book would be like calling Moby-Dick a whaling
manual. . . Meiburg’s book is full of good seeing and the good
writing that comes from it.”—Sam Hodges, Dallas Morning News
“Meiburg is an enormously skilled writer, and even if you've never
heard of striated caracaras, you're likely to be drawn in by his
enthusiasm and elegant prose.”—Michael Schaub, Star Tribune
“A Most Remarkable Creature is much more than a scientific profile.
It is a grand intellectual adventure involving dinosaurs, DNA,
naturalists, exploration and survival. Meiburg is a gifted
storyteller, and one can't help but fall under the same spell he
did.”—Lauren O’Brien, Shelf Awareness
“Meiburg lodges the caracara so deeply in readers’ hearts that by
the end of the book, they will feel ready to participate in
whatever scheme he proposes to save this peculiar
dinosaur-descendant.”—Anna Spydell, BookPage (starred review)
“Meiburg elevates himself to the top ranks of science writers with
this enthralling debut . . . Meiburg’s evocative prose will
bring armchair naturalists into the wild with him. Fans of literary
nature narratives will be thrilled by his lyrical account, and
eager to see where Meiburg goes next.”—Publishers Weekly (starred
review)
“An ambitious, impressive debut. The book’s manifold strands will
engage all sorts of readers, including bird lovers, science buffs,
and eco-adventure fans.”—Robert Eagan, Library Journal (starred
review)
“Meiburg’s enthusiasm [for the caracaras] matches Darwin’s, and
readers will share it. . . Not only a fine writer, the author
is clearly an adventurer, and he devotes entertaining chapters to
treks into the high Andes and South American jungles in search of
other caracara species. . . [A] wholly captivating natural
history.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“In this wonderful combination of travelogue (it makes one want to
visit the Falklands), history of science (Henry Hudson was quite
the naturalist), and natural history, the reader will meet a bird
of prey that. . . [is] truly the most mischievous of all feathered
creation.”—Nancy Bent, Booklist (starred review)
“More than anything else, rock musician Jonathan Meiburg’s book A
Most Remarkable Creature . . . seems so attuned to the
personalities, intelligences, and feelings of the animals he
encounters. . . It’s a humble, grateful book, full of wonderful
ornithological knowledge.”—Olivia Rutigliano, Lit Hub
“Astonishing . . . It’s one of my favorite books I’ve read this
year.”—Elisa Shoenberger, Book Riot
“Abounding with intriguing characters and too-close-for-comfort
wildlife encounters, the book is an enrapturing tale about the
unfolding evolutionary drama of our planet.”—Corryn Wetzel,
Audubon
“With striking prose and talon-sharp wit, the book delivers on
[Meiburg’s] lofty ambitions. After reading it, I found myself
looking at birds differently, as well as the world at large and
humans’ relationship to it.”—Bryan C. Parker, Texas Monthly
“Meiburg’s writing possesses that rare, and very readable, ability
to tread surely between the studious and the conversational. . .
The feeling one is left with is of having spent a rather wonderful
evening in the company of someone both extremely knowledgeable and
at ease with that knowledge.”—Will Burns, Caught by the River
“[Meiburg] takes readers from the fog-bound coasts of the Falklands
to tropical forests in Guyana to falconry parks in the English
countryside, where captive caracaras perform incredible feats of
memory and problem-solving.”—Matt Mendenhall, Bird Watching
Daily
“Jonathan Meiburg vividly brings to life not only a nearly
shaman-like character – the striated caracara – but also the world
that opens when you look at the raptor. It’s a riveting work of
natural history, human exploration, and evolutionary
detection.”—Michael S. Hopkins, Christian Science Monitor
“[Meiburg] takes our known world and spins it on its head,
revealing complexities and wonders about not just the field of
ornithology, but the planet and humankind as well so that we might
be inspired to continue seeking out the unknowns in order to
discover something new.”—Miyako Pleines, Chicago Audubon
Society
“Like any good book about a single bird species, this one combines
adventure, travel, mystery and science.”—Jim Williams, Minneapolis
Star Tribune
“This book is an evolutionary labyrinth, taking Meiburg to the end
of the world following a single, curious predator. Vivid,
beautiful, and scientifically rich, crawling with jungle ants,
blasted by Antarctic winds, his tales will transport you from the
page to wilder places.”—Craig Childs, author of Atlas of a Lost
World
“A Most Remarkable Creature does what only the very best science
and nature writing can. Jonathan Meiburg reminds us that our world
is not fully known, that the prehistoric walk among us, and, most
of all, how exciting and unnerving it feels to encounter an animal
you’ve never seen before, and, even more, to find that animal
staring right back.”—Steven Rinella, author of American Buffalo: In
Search of a Lost Icon
“A rich, sprawling romp through time and far-flung, fabulous
spaces, in pursuit of one of Earth’s most enigmatic, engaging, and
shrewdest creatures.”—Alan Weisman, author of Countdown
“I’m in love with this book. If you like great writing, strange
historical twists, adventure, nature, music and/or birds this
will quickly become one of your all-time favorite books.”—Laurie
Anderson, artist
“What a remarkable feat: taking a mysterious, oddly social, keenly
intelligent bird of prey that most of the world has never heard of
and animating the creature with such beauty that it comes fully
alive in our imaginations. Jonathan Meiburg went on an equatorial
search for the latter-day descendants of the age-old caracara and
brought back--a little like Darwin himself--travel report,
documentary, biography, social history, scientific treatise. And
all of it so wonderfully readable.”—Paul Hendrickson, author of
Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost
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