Dear Reader,
Today's guest author, Gerard O'Donovan, is an Irish journalist and TV critic for the Daily Telegraph. He was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award, and is the author of three previous thrillers, The Priest, Dublin Dead and The Long Silence. Now through the eyes of Tom Collins, an Irish-American private eye, O'Donovan again brings to life the glittering lives, sensational scandals, and atmosphere of silent-era Hollywood in his latest thriller The Doom List.
Email: [email protected] please say hello and welcome him to our book club.
The Bird with the Biggest Lungs in the World
"The bird with the biggest lungs in the world" is what I've taken to calling the thrush that sings outside my window in the morning. His singing is glorious--endlessly exuberant melodies of squeaks, whirrs, churrs, and whistles. But, for a creature that's barely bigger than my hand, it is the volume of his song that most impresses. Perched on the highest branch of the tallest tree around, beak up and polka-dot chest puffed out, he bellows his presence out with all his heart--letting every potential mate know they couldn't do better than him. Or maybe he's just singing for the heck of it. For the sheer joy of being alive.
The birdsong has been extraordinary this year. Maybe because Lockdown has turned the world so quiet; maybe because this little thrush has tuned up my ear for it. I live in rural Suffolk now, but over the years most of my time has been spent in cities big and small. Dublin, Vienna, Madrid, London. Cities as diverse as New York and Istanbul are among my favourite places in the world. And I write about cities, mostly. My four published novels feature Dublin and Los Angeles not just as settings but as characters in themselves. Lively places with not a lot of birdsong always evident, but which burst with light and darkness and thrilling stories of the good, the bad and the wonderfully strange.
Strange things happen in Suffolk, too. I was in the courtyard outside my kitchen the other day when my attention was snagged by an oddly piercing chirping. I looked around but couldn't locate the source. So I turned away and stooped again over the plant I was tending. All of a sudden, I experienced the most bizarre sensation. A presence, fluttering and scratching at the back of my neck. I sprang up in surprise--and saw a little brown and yellow bundle flap away and land on the garden table. A fat, mottle-chested thrush chick, its stubby wings only just fledged, straw-thin legs ending in sharp claws. It fixed me with a shiny black pin-dot eye and cheeped indignantly at me with an ear-splitting shrillness.
Seconds later it was gone, flapping off into the bushes with the all ungainly enthusiasm of the novice, shrieking its little heart out. So stridently, I couldn't help wondering about its parentage. Could it possibly be...? I wondered. One thing is for sure. The bird with the biggest lungs in the world has got some serious competition coming his way.
-- Gerard O'Donovan
Email: [email protected]
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.
THE 24-HOUR SOUP KITCHEN: Soul-Stirring Lessons in Gastrophilanthropy (NonFiction) by Stephen Henderson
After cooking at a soup kitchen in Delhi that daily feeds 20,000 people, journalist Stephen Henderson began volunteering at charitable settings in cities across America, and around the world. A colorful series of travel essays, this book brings a reader inside the chaos and compassion of kitchens in Iran, Israel, and South Korea, as well as Austin, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on THE 24-HOUR SOUP KITCHEN to read more and to email author Stephen Henderson, you'll get a reply.
Recent Comments