I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book would be a good read for a number of people. Those who love birdwatching and have interest in doing a big year. Those who struggle with relationships and or drug and alcohol dependency. Those who just want to read a great story about making it out on the other end of a difficult time. I found this book to be intriguing, challenging, and inspiring.

I loved this book, I read it more than once. I felt like it was truly easy to read, fun to read, and I absolutely felt the authors voice.

I'd seen this book listed as a preorder somewhere, so I was floored when I saw it on NetGalley and so glad I could read it! As a cyclist and a beginner birder, I thought this mix of memoir and "adventure"/nature writing was wonderful. Anderson's writing could, at times, use a bit of additional polish and I wished for some heavier editing here and there, but I appreciated the honesty and thoughtfulness with which he shared this story.

Bicycling around America to see as many bird species as possible during a Big Year without petroleum power, was just one of the challenges Dorian faced. He was overcoming himself, his addictive, rush-fuelled personality which had led him to spend insane amounts of money and time high or blotto. Obviously a really bright man, Dorian had worked through college and science degrees, but I found it really odd that he gave two years to experiments before realising there was a reason none of them worked as expected. Probably if he was ever sober he'd have corrected course much earlier.

Abandoning science and his DJ-ing for a cleaner pedal powered way of life may have saved his life. I'm wondering why nobody ever told Dorian that the drugs he ingested were destroying the habitats of migrant and resident birds across the Americas. Forests and rainforests are cleared for illegal planting. The money supports exploitation and violent crime. He never saw drugs as affecting anyone but himself, and that's why his girlfriend left him.

Hoping to find 600 bird species, a sense of purpose and a relationship, Dorian nearly gave up early on, but the fact that he was blogging and had many birding followers and commenters pushed him to continue. We get the blow by blow of so many species, the irruptives and natives, the lone wonders and large flocks. New friends put him up and motels sometimes risked his health. The mountain peaks and mudflats, the sagebrush and reserves, are all detailed for anyone wishing to follow in Dorian's tracks. Interspersed with the 2014 road trip are memories of his self-destructive past, an ideal way to break up the account.

Recommended for birders. I would like to see colleges and science institutions taking more responsibility for the welfare of students and those in their staff. Two colleges declined to accept Dorian and that should have been a warning.

I read an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

I heard about this book when the author was interviewed on the Life List podcast. I was fortunate to get an advanced copy through NetGalley -- so glad I did.

Anderson takes on a birding big year (trying to see as many birds as possible within a geographic area in calendar year) in 2014 as a way of breaking from the academic treadmill he'd been running, and as a way to evaluate his 4 years of sobriety. His goal was to see as many birds as possible in the lower 48 states, travelling entirely by bicycle. Having read a few books on other birders' big years, I found his approach refreshing. Yes, seeing the birds was important and the frame upon which this adventure was hung. But the true accomplishment was having the time to test his own limits, reflecting on his rocky past with substance abuse, and building a new path forward.

The trip he describes was grueling and filled with dangers, among them angry dogs, busy roads, collisions and crashes. But he also met and stayed with a an array of people around the country who were following his journey. Each had their own version of hospitality, and each provided context and lessons for Anderson as he grew along the way.

Sometimes, the parallels between his life and the behavior of a bird species are made a little awkwardly, and at times the dialog in remembered conversations can feel a bit stilted, but I suppose that's hard to get around writing 10 years after the event. It was just noticeable, but didn't really take away from the overall story or Anderson's amazing accomplishment.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. If you have an interest in birding, bicycling or memoirs of substance abuse, give this a try. It may seem alike a strange combination, but life is like that. And I'm really glad that Anderson is still around and able to share this with a larger audience.

Thank you NetGalley and Chelsea Green Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I love cycling and I love nature (why isn't my hashtag #BotanicalMountainBiking more used?) so, at first glance, this was a book that could have been written just for me. It started talking about lapwings, one of my favourite birds and (as a European) one that I am very familiar with and, despite its iridescent plumage, find hard to imagine being exotic. The vast majority of the other birds mentioned were unknown names to me, but I did enjoy when the author didn't just list them but told us a bit about them as well.
The cycling aspect was also interesting. He started as pretty much a novice, so I was left wondering why he didn't try out the clip-on pedals first, why he hadn't trained even a little for this and why he couldn't have got himself better tyres to avoid all the punctures. But maybe that comes down to American roads. I lived a couple of years in Illinois, and the locals thought I was bonkers for cycling to work. The shouted abuse, car horns and rubbish at the side of the road were all very familiar. I was even stopped by the police once because a car driver had complained that I was cycling on the road rather than on the (rubbish-filled) grass verge. As it happens, I had taken my Illinois driving test the week before and had to inform the police that it was actually illegal for me to cycle on the verge. It reminded me how lucky we are to have decent cycling infrastructure here, and also the luxury of not being scared of violent locals if we cycle on back roads.
The book had a third theme, alcoholism. That felt a little crowded. Although the three aspects are all very interconnected, that did mean that the focus was sometimes lost as the author switched from one thing to another. The book is also an autobiography, and of course, with every autobiography you are left wondering how reliable the narrative is. What has been left out and what has been exaggerated. When describing his scientific work, the author uses quite a lot of scientific terminology and in some places I got the impression that he was trying to impress the reader with his erudition, rather than explain matters. He assumes that readers know what the dendrites and axon of a neuron are - or does he expect them to google it? As a biologist, I could follow it all, but I can imagine that some readers will feel forced to skip those paragraphs.
The prose is mostly fairly straightforward. Some of the phrases are a bit bizarre ("conversation flowed as freely as urine" was very odd), but it was all quite readable.
The twin theme of cycling and 'twitching' reminded me of Lief Bersweden's book 'Where the wildflowers grow'. Although Dorian Anderson's book doesn't have the wonderful quality of prose of Bersweden, it is still a worthwhile and enjoyable read, and his personal struggle and ultimate success in relation to his addiction has the potential to inspire those suffering from similar problems.
Acknowledgment: This review is based on a free pre-publication copy of the book obtained from the publisher via the Netgalley platform, in return for an honest review.

The premise of this book is intriguing and I went into it with high hopes. The facts of biking and bird watching are interesting, however the language and tone of the writing at times felt stilted. I would recommend this book for bird and bike lovers and/or those interested in recovery stories. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a really interesting look at bird watching, bird biking? If you are a bird enthusiast, this is definitely the book for you. Part memoir, part journal it recounts the authors birding Big Year on his bike. It was a really interesting book and I will likely use it in my classroom, but it definitely reads more like a manual than a memoir. The writing is a little stilted and doesn’t flow smoothy. The author is a neuroscientist and I realize that his writing style is probably more research based and this shines through here.