The book
that could change how you see your world, from
What makes this book so worth reading ... is not the list
of species, but the way Winkler thinks and writes.
—Birding
A book that will teach you how
to better see and appreciate what is in front of your nose.
—Bird Observer
Going Wild convincingly
demonstrates the value and power of attachment and locality.
—The Weekly Standard
Going Wild provides a thoughtful and well-informed account of nature ... [and] will appeal to lovers of natural
history.
—The Times Literary Supplement
A book urban dwellers with a taste for nature should take to heart ... filled with fascinating bits of information.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
There
is a tremendous amount of natural history information tucked into this book,
skillfully woven into anecdote and personal observation.
—Bird Watcher's Digest
Filled with a love of nature, a strong conservation ethic,
and personal touches that make the reader want to learn more,
this quiet book will find a niche with fans of good nature
writing.
—Booklist
When you’re looking for good books about the natural
world, you’re bound to run into a worthy bird book ... such as
Robert Winkler’s Going
Wild.
—More
Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and
Reason
[Robert Winkler's] bright writing makes for a very
pleasant read.
—Yankee Magazine
Selected by World Book Science Year 2005 as one of 16
"important new books about science"
Quotables
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. G. K. Chesterton
Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature that I am conversant with? Henry D. Thoreau
To think like a dog, or even a goose, would be a decided advantage to
any writer. He would be observing life without human confusion, and
bound to find some wonderful news. Ben Hecht
The hard part of writing is not the typing part, but the thinking part. Dave Barry
If a lion could talk, we would not understand him. Ludwig Wittgenstein
If there is anything worthy the absurdity of life it’s a
newspaper—gibbering, whining, strutting, sprawled in attitudes of
worship before the nine-and-ninety lies of the moment—a caricature of
absurdity itself. Ben Hecht
I have no time to read newspapers. If you chance to live and move and
have your being in that thin stratum in which the events which make the
news transpire—thinner than the paper on which it is printed—then
these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive
below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them.
Henry D. Thoreau
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in
tune once more. John Burroughs
You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific about birds
and trees and flowers and water-craft; a certain free margin, and even
vagueness—perhaps ignorance, credulity—helps your enjoyment of these
things. Walt Whitman
We need the tonic of wildness ...
We must be refreshed by the sight of
inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features ... We need to witness
our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we
never wander. Henry D. Thoreau
The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more
complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with
extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by
voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not
underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of
life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the
earth.
Henry Beston
Don't fly Mister Bluebird,
I'm just walking down the road
Early morning sunshine tells me all I need to know Dickey Betts (Allman Brothers Band)
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many
plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various
insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth,
and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different
from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner,
have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in
the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is
almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct
action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a
Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a
consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and
the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature,
from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of
conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly
follows. There is grandeur in
this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally
breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has
gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a
beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and
are being, evolved. Charles Darwin
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath
life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of
heaven. Genesis
Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all
around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the
leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to
that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man. Henry D. Thoreau
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? Henry D. Thoreau
Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions. I hate
quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A message from Robert Winkler
Jeff Brush/Connecticut Post (used with permission)
If you enjoyed this Web site, I know you'll enjoy my critically
acclaimed book, Going Wild:
Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness (National
Geographic), which expands on many
of the short pieces I've posted here. Why do I write about birds? Because they represent the
wild in all its glory. They're numerous, diverse, intelligent, talkative, and
beautiful; their power of flight never ceases to amaze; and they're the most
conspicuous class of wild animal—even in the suburb, they're just about
everywhere. Whether you're a beginning or advanced birder, a fan of
nature writing, a curious suburbanite, or a reader in search of that rare
bird known as a good book, Going Wild could very well change how you
view your world.
