The Feather Thief

The author became obsessed with the true story of a young American flautist with a penchant for tying salmon flies who stole hundreds of rare dead birds from the Natural History Museum in London to sell feathers to other collectors and flytiers. MacLeod Andrews's narration is so engaging and enthusiastic that he gives this engrossing story extra zip. In particular, he perfectly expresses the author's constant sense of absurdity and surprise at what humans do. The litany of ridiculousness ranges from the killing of birds for fashionable hats to the burglar's creating a document titled "Plan for Museum Invasion" on his computer and to the author and his wife's stuffing rolled towels into a suitcase to see if 299 birds jammed into one suitcase is even possible. A.B. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine