Product Details
Free Press, February 2005
Trade Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 0743245466
ISBN-13: 9780743245463
Description
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, prize-winning 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.
Outside magazineA feathered version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
The Boston GlobeSuperlative...ebulliently wonderful....The suspense ratchets up, and Obmascik's considerable skill is to make these men so real in their quests, so admirably alive, that in the end who wins the contest is almost beside the point....Because the true subject here is the human spirit
-- and all the impossible, incredible, and wondrous things we do and endure for our beloved passions.
Chicago TribuneA most compelling tale. This is a bird book for the masses....Their chase is entertaining and wonderfully retold.
Kenn Kaufmanauthor of Kaufman Focus Guides: Birds of North AmericaIf you didn't think that a bird book could be a gripping page-turner, The Big Year will blow you away. Mark Obmascik has captured the best and the worst of birding, the euphoria and insanity of bird-chasing as an extreme sport, in this vivid, well-crafted epic.
T. R. ReidWashington Post's Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief, regular commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and author of Confucius Lives Next DoorHere's a rare species: a book on birdwatching that turns out to be charming, engrossing, and educational even for people who can't tell a mudhen from a magpie. It was so much fun, I didn't want the big year to end. When it did, there was only one thing to say: "Where'd I put those binoculars?"
Denver Post, May 14, 2009
...vodkas. In the back of the house, above the rest- rooms, sits a flock of plastic pink flamingos. Mark Obmascik, 47, is a Denver writer with a passion for the impossible-to-get story. His first book, 'The Big Year,' followed manic ...
Mark Obmascik's Books
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Halfway to HeavenThe beloved author of The Big Year embarks on an outrageous midlife mountain-climbing adventure scaling Colorado’s famous Fourteeners.Read More
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