Hayward has a talent for humor that never overwhelms his narrative. ( )

Fairly well written although transitions are sometimes rough. Could have benefitted from being edited to be shorter--reading the whole book was a big time commitment. But I'd still recommend this book to any birder. ( )

Now that I've been emancipated from crutches and taxis, I'm back to being able to enjoy audiobooks again, and after a small audio spree, I have quite a backlog to choose from. I started with this one; even if I'm not quite up to bush walking while looking through a camera lens yet, I'm definitely ready to hear about someone else's adventures.

Unfortunately, this was only a little more than half of what I'd hoped it would be. Neil Hayward's 'accidental' big year was a lot of fun to listen to/read about, and his last minute travel itineraries boggled the mind. I loved every birding minute of this book. But this book is also as much about the angst he suffered in his personal life, at least some of which was due to clinical depression, and not a little also due to an extraordinary pessimism he blamed on his British upbringing. I avoid gross generalisations about people on a nation-wide basis, but Hayward did resemble an old boyfriend of mine, who lived in England, more than a little bit. Regardless, I was in a mood to read about wild and uncommon adventures in birding, not girlfriend/career/mental illness angst, so I found these parts of the narrative tedious. A few times at the start I considered DNF'ing because there was so. much. angst. But once he embraced the goal to see as many birds as possible in one year (limited to US/Canada -Hawaii), the book held my interest more often than not, and ultimately left me satisfied.

The narrator did a very creditable job. ( )

I really enjoyed this account by Neil Hayward of his pursuit of the record number of North American birds sighted in one year. In addition to going back and forth from Alaska to Florida he related his struggle with depression, relationships and what to do with his life. If I wasn't a dedicated bird watcher myself would I have enjoyed this book so much, maybe not that is impossible to know. ( )

Rich man finds salvation through spending untold (he doesn't tell) dollars chasing after rare birds to break a record... I did learn something about birding culture, which was interesting, and I thought a bit about how little my personality lends itself to obsessive pursuits. ( )