The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

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Kirk Johnson is known as the founder of the List Project, for resettling Iraqi allies. After some successes, he became despondent, and found this interesting story. In 2009, the flutist Edwin Rist burgled the Natural History Museum at Tring, and stole 399 bird skins. Why? The bad thing about this audiobook is that the first half seemed endlessly dull to me. I found myself trying the limits of my aural capacity, speeding up the narrator's voice to a comical clip as he talked about the history of bird collections and the fly-tying community. Some of the history was alright, but the chain True Crime (Tikrų nusikaltimų) žanro knygas skaitau labai retai. Nusikaltimai mane domina mažiausiai. Ėmiausi šios knygos, nes aprašomas kriminalas - ne žudymas, bet viena iš garsiausiu 20 a. vagysčių. Ji įvykdyta iš aistros žvejybinėms muselėms, pagamintoms iš retų ir net jau išnykusių paukščių plunksnų.

It's about a guy who was obsessed about fly-tying, and eventually broke into Natural History museum to steal irreplaceable bird species and feathers to use for this purpose. All in all, I highly recommend this book. To sportsmen, to crime buffs, to pyschology students, and to anyone else who loves a good mystery. Here is where things get really interesting, at least for me. Rist confessed immediately, but a psychological evaluation diagnosed him with Asperger’s; on the strength of that mental health defense he was given a suspension and a large fine, but no jail time, so he graduated from the Royal Academy as normal and auditioned for jobs. The precedent was a case from 2000 in which a young man with Asperger’s who stole human remains from a Bristol graveyard was exonerated.Author Kirk Wallace Johnson found his subject matter quite circuitously, as he was recovering from burnout; his efforts to resettle homeless Iraqis had resulted in a case of PTSD, and led to a fishing trip, and a quasi interest in fly fishing. There, he heard about Edwin Rist, a young flautist who had plundered one of the most revered collections of preserved birds, over a hundred years old - to tear apart to sell for the purpose of making fishing flies. A young "savant", Edwin Rist, had everything going for him. A brilliant flautist, he and his brother (also a savant), discovered the art of tying Atlantic Salmon flies. Throwing themselves into the hobby, they soon discovered the extreme costs and rarity of some of the required feathers.

Deciding to read The Feather Thief should really come down to how much you want to know about birds. Birds are animals I'm perfectly willing to appreciate at a distance but, barring a series of childhood budgies, they've never been my particular thing. All the same, I've got mad respect for Darwin, Wallace, and their culture-rupturing scientific discovery made possible by tropical birds, so I thought this book would be up my alley. A Review of Robert L. France’s Disentangled: Ethnozoology and Environmental Explanation of the Gloucester Sea Serpent This fascinating study of obsession begins by exploring the history of nineteenth-century British natural history collecting, the Anglo-American trade in feathers for women's hats, and Victorian salmon fly-tying, providing important context for the central, incredible tale of the 2009 theft of a million dollars worth of rare bird skins from the British Natural History Museum by Edwin Rist, an American student of the flute at the Royal Academy of Music in London. A third section of the book relates the author's quest to recover skins not confiscated by police during Rist's arrest in 2010. I highly recommend.It is always fascinating to hear where the idea of a book is born. In the above quote Johnson refers to his work with refugees, this being his way of righting a wrong he saw first hand in his job reconstructing the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Overtired, he walked out a window which he refers to as a “PTSD-triggered fugue state” in which he nearly died. While recovering he launched a non-profit to help the refugees but when he needed a break it was trout fishing that provided relaxation. Quietly fishing the Red River in Taos, New Mexico with fly-fishing guide Spencer Seim, he first heard the name Edwin Rist, one of the best fly tiers “on the planet” who Seim went on to say ”broke into the British Museum of Natural History just to get birds for these flies.”. The Feather Thief truly is a tale of obsession. All the men who appear in Johnson’s enjoyable book, including the author, appear to be batty, gripped by a mania for exotic birds. Oooo, do I have opinions about the talented teenager involved. Man, am I feeling compelled to discuss this crazy heist. But most of all, I am floored over the worldwide obsession that fed the entire thing. This book did not leave me feeling happy or touched, just agog and a bit angry. If you're up for it, I highly recommend it. Once Kirk Wallace Johnson heard about this most unusual heist, he jumped down the rabbit hole with both feet, beginning a long journey for the truth, which culminated in this book. It's one of those non-fiction books that makes you reach out for Google countless times, or buy other books because you discovered things you didn't know existed, or you didn't know you were interested.