About this deal
The owner, John Daniels, is a bird and wildlife photographer who bought the cottage because of its position and charm.
She becomes something of a recluse, even denying the postman access to her garden, where she lets the birds pick thread off her socks to line their nests. The two books she published in her lifetime were great successes, but when she died in 1973 her work sank into oblivion.
It is a story of an incredible woman who pursues her two biggest passions, playing violin and observing birds. After years of a successful musical career, she decided, at age 40, that she’d had enough of city life and that what she really wanted was to live quietly in the country observing and interacting with birds. In an interview she observes that “brick by brick my answers build a wall around me, all neatly mortared”. Bird Cottage has been translated from the original Dutch by Antoinette Fawcett, and is printed in its English edition by Pushkin Press, a publishing house which I always gravitate toward.
Reflecting this melodious development, in the early years we have Mozart and Haydn, moving to colorful and ardent music of Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Rachmaninoff, and then Bartok.
Translated by Antoinette Fawcett and published in paperback last month, Bird Cottage imagines the story of British naturalist and musician Len Howard. Others – like Eva Meijer’s Bird Cottage – weave their way into your heart quietly and subtly, delivering an unpretentious story that charms with its simplicity. Looking at this lovely yellow cover with the wonderful birds cheered me up, so this was the winner for this week.