In Birds, Art, Life: A Year of Observation, Kio Maclear embarks on an ornithological journey through a big city, reflecting on the nature of creativity and the search for a meaningful life along the way.

Finding herself in a difficult life situation, the narrator discovers the world of “birding,” or birdwatching. On the one hand, it is an essay exploring our relationship with the natural world, on the other, it is a candid experiment in autofiction, an exercise in the art of observation, and a diary of self-observation. Birds become for Maclear what mushrooms were for John Cage, butterflies for Vladimir Nabokov, or bees for Sylvia Plath: an external impetus for an internal journey.

At a deeper level, Maclear raises questions about how we are shaped and nurtured by our parallel passions, and how we might come to care for not only the world’s pristine natural places, but also the speckled urban spaces in which we live.