Books from Amazon.com
The following books are available from Amazon.com.
They concern various aspects of crow life history, legend, and lore. If you order from our site
through one of the links below the Crows.net project will receive a commission on the sale.
Click on a book title to find out more information on that particular work. Don't worry,
you won't be committed to buy anything until you actually place your order.
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books, we will receive a commission on anything you buy without it adding to your cost.
Its a great way to support the project and only takes a minute longer than accessing Amazon.com
directly. Simply come to this page on crows.net, click on any of the book links in this section,
then use the Amazon.com site as you would normally.
Corvus: A Life with Birds
by Esther Woolfson (2008).
From time out of mind, many humans have lived with crows and other corvids, and a surprising number have written about their experiences. Of all of these authors, Esther Woolfson has presented us with some of the most intimate details of a life lived with a succession of corvid friends, rook, magpie, crow. The is a book filled with wonderful information, drawn both personal experience and the whole range of published literature on birds in general and corvids in particular. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I found myself very impatient and somewhat irritated by the author’s style of presentation, a rambling memoir that jumps here and there, sometimes losing its thread entirely. It’s the sort of irritable impatience I feel when in the middle of Moby Dick, Melville interrupts a ripping good sea story with a chapter devoted to the myriad meanings of white.
If you think that by comparing the flaws of the author to those of Herman Melville, I am, in fact, paying her a very odd sort of compliment, you are quite correct. There are many important thoughts and facts in this book and it is well worth reading. But please read it when you have the leisure to savor each sentence and to appreciate the non-linear progression of the stories. Perhaps the book should be saved for winter evenings by the fire, not dipped into hastily near the summer solstice, between bird watching and planting the garden.
The American Crow
and the Common Raven by Lawrence Kilham is an exceptionaly good book, based primarily upon
the author's personal field observations, but also incorporating a great deal of the information
available in the scientific literature at the time of writing.
Bird Brains: The
Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays by Candice Savage is a very good,wide
ranging survey of some of the information available on the subject. The book is filled with
wonderful, full-page Sierra Club photos and is worth purchasing for the pictures alone.
Crows: Encounters
with the Wise Guys by Candace Savage. Another book by the author of "Bird Brains". This is
kind of a hodge-podge of interesting crow stories, facts, illustrations and odds and ends. It’s
rather like a book edited by a magpie might turn out to be. Enjoyable reading for the crow minded.
"In the Company of
Crows and Ravens" by John M. Marzulff, with a forward by Paul Erlich and illustrations by Tony
Angell is a collaboration between one of the few ornithologists specializing in crows and an artist
who has spent many years observing and drawing them. In design, it is an investigation of all the
modes of interaction between crows and humans and, in dealing with the subject, covers just about
all that is known about corvids in general and the American crow in particular. It is a fascinating
book that suffers just a bit from its editorial style, a sort of science textbook form, where the
authors refer to themselves individually by their surnames and so forth, yet it is still quite
possibly the best single book written on the subject of crows to date.
Mind of the
Raven by Bernd Heinrich is a detailed exploration of the mental abilities of the common
raven by one of the most readable and scientists/naturalists around anywhere. A completely
fascinating book.
Crows and
Jays by Steve Madge, illustrated by Hilary Burn is an excellent reference work on all the
members of the crow family. The illustrations are also excellent. This is a "must have" book
for those interested in all of the corvids.
Crows!: Strange and Wonderful by Laurence Pringle and illustrated by Bob Marstall is
a great kid's introduction to the fascinating behavior of crows. A picture book format for
ages 4 to 8 with very good illustrations. Probably the best crow book for kids available.
Crows: An Old Rhyme by Heidi Holder is an illustrated version for children of the
old counting rhyme about crows.
Crow by Boria Sax. A very enjoyable survey of the crow and raven in literature,
history, and myth.
Clever Crow by S.D. Schindler (Illustrator), Cynthia C. DeFelice. For ages 3 to 6.
The story of a girl and a trickster crow.
Crows in Our Hands by John Paul Barrett. New from Gaff Press
of Astoria, Oregon. The story of the author's experience with a dozen crows that came under his
and his wife's care during a five year period. 152 pages, profusely illustrated. Each book
hand-bound,
numbered and signed by the author. A unique book, highly recommended, particularly to anyone
who ever wondered just what it would be like to adopt a wild crow.
Ravensong: A Natural And Fabulous History Of Ravens And Crows by Catharine Feher-Elston . In this beautifully illustrated study, Catherine Feher-Elston looks at ravens and crows in the contexts of Native American folklore, history, and science.
If you click on any of the above book links you will arrive at an Amazon.com page which
includes listings of other books about crows and their relatives.
Hot off the Press:
Caw of the Wild: Observations from the Secret World of Crows. by Barb Kirpluk. 2005. iUniverse, Lincoln, NE. 159 pages.
If ever you wondered what it would be like to make friends with your local crows, and just how you would go about gaining their trust, this is the book to read. Caw of the Wild" is an intensely personal journal of what can only be described as the author's love affair with a group of neighborhood crows and her quest both to become friends with them and learn everything possible about their lives, language, and behavior. In the process she faces the problems of identifying individuals among a population who all look very much the same, without even a visible difference between males and females, and of trying to decipher the language, both verbal and non-verbal, of a non-human species. During the course of her observations, she independently discovers some of the key relationships of crows, both within their immediate families and with their neighbors, adding significant details to the work of professional ornithologists.
Caw of the Wild is a book very much worth reading both by those who have yet to discover the incredible world of crow society and those whose more experienced, but dispassionate approach to the study of crows, has perhaps removed them a bit from the sheer joy that one can experience simply from getting to know these intelligent birds as individuals. Highly Recommended.
Click here to look at "Caw of the Wild" on Amazon.com
Recently Published:
Poe the Crow by Jan Devereux with illustrations by Roxy Vanslette. 2004. Lakeview Press, Cambridge, MA. 139 pages.
A delightful novel for children about a girl who finds an egg and Poe, the crow who hatches out of it. Ellie Wooten, the heroine of the book, is a fourth-grader, but both younger and older children (as well as adults) should enjoy the tale of Ellie's crow hating artist father, her mother who sets out to save the school's music program endangered by budget cuts, and a whole host of characters including her school mates, their families, local characters, and even big city art collectors. Highly Recommended! The book is available from the author's website by clicking on the link below.
http://www.PoetheCrow.com
Author Jan Devereux's website about Poe the Crow..
Crows in Our Hands by John Paul Barrett. New from Gaff Press
of Astoria, Oregon. The story of the author's experience with a dozen crows that came under his
and his wife's care during a five year period. 152 pages, profusely illustrated. Each book
hand-bound,
numbered and signed by the author. A unique book, highly recommended, particularly to anyone
who ever wondered just what it would be like to adopt a wild crow. Available from the Gaff Press
website by clicking on the link below. Tell them that crows.net sent you!.
http://gaffpress.com
Gaff Press website.
(Since this is an on-going project, this page and others will be updated on a continuing basis.)
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