Nonfiction Book Club

Join fellow readers at the library for an engaging discussion of Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper on Thursday April 11th at 1:30 p.m.

Christian Cooper is a self-described Blerd (Black nerd), an avid comics fan, and an expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park. When birdwatching in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old. But when a routine encounter with a dog-walker escalates age old racial tensions, Cooper's viral video of the incident would send shockwaves through the nation. In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous encounter in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny ways, to be a gay, Black man in American today. Equal parts memoir, travelog, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper's story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days as a writer for Marvel Comics, to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding is Cooper's invitation into the wonderful world of birds, and what they can teach us about life, if only we would stop and listen.

Better Living Through Birding is the 2024 Long Island Reads selection. Click HERE for more information about Long Island Reads and to reserve tickets to see Christian Cooper at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library on April 21, 2024, at 2 pm.

Copies of the book are available on Libby and may also be picked up at the Information Desk.