WE SHOULD ALL BE BIRDS

... nearly every page manages to prompt an emotionlaughter, tears, wonder, or palm-to-chest exhalation in recognition of a profound truth. Indeed, the book is a sparkling example of the best kind of first-person storytelling in that its specificity succeeds in revealing universal truths. An extraordinary story full of humanity and life lessons from a man whose disability has largely removed him from society.

Buckbee's prose (brilliantly edited by Fitzgerald, to whom he dictated the memoir) is vibrant, lyrical, and pulsing with life and the wonder of nature. His ruminations drift from descriptions of majestic Asian fruit bats to soft-focus memories of L. and her son, the loss of one of his avian wards to a hawk, the cruelty of his pain, and the sweetness of his makeshift bird sanctuary. The sense of loss and loneliness is intense but so, too, is the sense of compassion Buckbee shows for his rescued birds and the companionship he receives from them. We Should All Be Birds is both elegy and paean, a celebration of life and the discovery of hope within pain.

We Should All be Birds is a beautifully intimate memoir about relentless love despite unrelenting pain. It's compulsively readable and unexpectedly reassuring in times that seem to have lost their footing. And yes, the birds are the real medicine. Especially one particular, peculiar little one.

raw and moving [and] will resonate with everyone who has determined to stay fully alive.

Brian Buckbee has discovered a slower, more openhearted, humble stance toward living and creating, where small joy is in no way insubstantial, and where attention given freelyto the birds he cares for who ultimately care for him, and to the needs of body and spiritcreates unexpected forms of love and devotion.

We Should All Be Birds" is about more than living with wild creatures. It's also about grief, loss, pain, loneliness and the healing power of love. It's sad but not depressing, loving but not maudlin, philosophical but not pompous. It's a powerful testament to how caring for another living creature even a wild bird can give life meaning. It joins a flock of recent books by writers who have bonded with birds (Frieda Hughes's "George," Lili Taylor's "Turning to Birds") and other animals (Chloe Dalton's "Raising Hare"), but Buckbee's humor, intimate tone and precarious physical condition set this book apart.

I loved every page of this book: Funny, sad, romantic, and full of pigeonsglorious but under-appreciated, mysterious yet near-at-hand, each an individual, their dramas unseen right under our noses. Yet for Buckbee, suffering from a broken heart and broken body, birds like the injured Two-Step fling open doors of enchantment, healing, and communion. He's right: We really should all be birdsbut since we can't, the best remedy I can think of is this book.

a captivating memoir, .. Buckbee is a probing, humorous writer who bravely bares his soul, interweaving the story of his birds, his relationship with his former fiancée and her son, and the dramatic, mysterious onset of his medical condition. Because his illness doesn't allow him to read or write, he dictates his story, with editor Carol Ann Fitzgerald helping finalize it in written form. Fitzgerald is "a wind-in-the-sails kind of person," Buckbee writes, acknowledging her critical role in getting his story to print. Their collaboration is amazingly seamless, and Buckbee proves to be a natural storyteller. As in many stories about animal-human bonds, the rescue here works both ways. "Two-Step opened a kettle of loneliness inside me and released all the pressure," writes Buckbee. We Should All Be Birds shows how keenly one can learn to appreciate the lively world at hand, no matter how small that world has become.

We probably have so few books about debilitating chronic illness because it's incredibly difficult to write when you're living with one. Voices from this huge slice of the population must often be silenced simply because creating is hard enough even without the added challenge. If those barriers to writing end up silencing chronically ill writers, their stories go untold, and awareness about them disappears, too. And that cycle leads to erasure. The most remarkable part of the book isn't the birds, though they're very remarkable. It's watching the author persist in telling his story (and the story of his birds, who sustain him) while learning about the day-to-day life of someone with severe chronic illness. .

filled with compassion, courage, and curiosity. There is something almost Proustian about the structure . Haunted by memory and love, it radiates beauty. Lyrical passages about nature and traveling evoke the wonder of creation . Intermingled with these reflections on his past life (and childhood) is the present-day (COVID-era) narrative, the odd friendship that forms between a lonely nature-loving writer and an injured wild bird many would never have noticed. And that's what makes this book so powerfulit notices. VERDICT Readers will love this fascinating and wise work, a highly recommended memoir for public and upper school libraries.

We Should All Be Birds is an immersive tale of chronic life, in which a bird allows a man to love him, which allows the author to finally love himself.

Brian Buckbee has sent us a series of gentle, funny, poignant, honest, and loving messages-in-a-bottle from the country of longterm illness and cross-species friendship. Reading We Should All Be Birds feels like stumbling into the serendipity of a conversation with a stranger that leaves you changed. With sweet lyricism, it accompanies you from darkness into connection. This story of a man's friendship with a pigeon serves as a reminder that living beyond yourself, entwined with the lives of other creatures, can save you when the human world fails to. It is a gift to spend time with Buckbee and his companion Two-Step.