The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Science, Math, and/or Nature – Audiobook

 

Novel Details

Author: Kirk Wallace Johnson

Narrator: MacLeod Andrews

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Length of Time: 8 hours (approx.)

Year of publication: 2018

Audiobook release: 2018

Novel Characteristics

Audiobook

Published after 2000

Brief Response

Johnson’s true crime saga walks readers through the hunt for naturalist and conversationist efforts in the 1800s, the Victorian era and the boom for rare and exotic bird feathers, and the rise and fall of Edwin Rist, the young man who broke into and robbed the Natural History Museum at Tring. Though occasionally dry as the author sets the stage, this story is compelling every step of the way. Edwin Rist is complicated; his feather and fly-tying enjoyment falls under obsession, but this does not “justify” his felony theft, dismemberment, and sale of hundreds of exotic bird specimens in 2009.

Worthy note: If you have ever ridden the Tower of Terror at the Disney Parks or watched The Twilight Zone, our narrator for this story sounds exactly like Rod Serling.