A year's worth of lovely nature essays from Margaret Renkl with original artwork from her son Billy. I could relate to so much of what she has written, having lived for many years on a half-acre of land that led down to a creek where nature abounded. Our daughters have so many wonderful memories of their childhood experiences!

This would make a wonderful gift for nature lovers on your list. I'll look forward to watching to see my first bird on the first day of the new year which will set the tone for my next twelve months. According to Renkl, that's a birding tradition and now it will be mine.

I received an arc of this new essay collection from the author and publisher via NetGalley. Many thanks! My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

“The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year” (Spiegel and Grau, 2023) is a book bursting with multitudes. Margaret Renkl gently marinates her narrative in fifty-two thoughtful weekly contemplations of nature, the life cycle, wonder, aging, and grief.

Renkl, “New York Times” contributing opinion writer, entreaties her readers to pay attention. Go outside. Marvel at the slugs and sugar ants underfoot. The twigs at mid or eye-level poking at your arm or sleeve. The sensorial Adventureland in your backyard or at your window.

Beginning with winter, Renkl walks us through a year, week-by-week, in her backyard observations, which include visits with a fox, coyote, barred owls, rat snakes, tadpoles, Cooper’s Hawk, irises, and so many more, including her crow.

Interspersed with treatises on nature and awe are moments of increasing clarity about her remaining time with loved ones, her family, and the interplay of grief in the life cycle.

A surprising (sibling talent!!) bonus? The vivid illustrations by Billy Renkl (Professor of Illustration and Drawing at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN) contribute to the seasonal awe and daily joys Margaret Renkl finely details.

For example, in “Praise for the Unloved Animals” (Summer Week 3) Margaret Renkl writes lovingly on the positive qualities of animals many people begrudge and others kill outright: opossums, vultures, mosquitoes. She applauds vultures for their contribution to the life cycle of other animals. Billy Renkl’s accompanying artwork depicts a vulture through Margaret Renkl’s compassionate and generous lens.

Thank you to Margaret Renkl, Spiegel & Grau, and NetGalley for the eARC!

I loved Margaret Renkl's collection of essays documenting a year in her yard, easing through the transitions and marking both the melancholy and the luminous. They have the same ease and movement readers might remember from her columns in The New York Times, but are grouped around the calendar. It is a primer on how to pay attention and how to mark the constant change around us (both the welcomed change of seasons and the horrifying pressure of climate change). Renkl writes that "The world will always be beautiful to those who look for beauty," and that's what this book does best--encourage to keep looking, to fend off distraction and despair, and look some more. It's not always pretty--nestlings are lost, climate disruption encroaches, older neighbors die and their yards and houses are replaced by bland development meant only for humans. In fact, sometimes it is a call to arms.

I read it over the course of weeks, but I plan to return to it over the course of a year, being reminded to keep looking throughout the turn of the seasons. Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for my earc in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are all my own.

Absolutely loved this one ! I brought it along with me to the park and I read an essay every time. I definitely feel like it needs to be read in nature. The book is broken into the seasons and I think it would be fun to read this one throughout the year, coinciding with the seasons. Thank you so much for the ARC!!

3.5/5. Gorgeous writing and beautiful illustrations. If it were 50% shorter, it would've had a 5 star review, but this is just my personal preference. I can see how this type of reflective writing appeals to a subset of people--I just don't happen to be in that subset and I would've liked to see a quicker pace.

I have no regrets in reading this. It's been a month into city life and I do yearn for the grass and the sky and the critters. Reminds me of all the exceptional things beyond the concrete skyline.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the eARC. All thoughts were my own.

This is way too beautiful!
I want to hibernate and accidentally catch a possum in a trap and help foxes.

I love the photos and all the stories.

Lovely meditations on the natural world and life. The illustrations are as beautiful as the writing. This would make a wonderful gift.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

This is one of those books you come across that just feels good for the soul to read. Margaret Renkl is the type of person who you want to spend an afternoon walking in nature with so you can see what she can see. While this book follows the course of a year and is part nature writing, part memoir it is in no way self centred. Instead Renkl writes to show the reader all the amazing every day things that she comes across as well as some of the heartbreak and more fragile moments too, which more often than not take place in her backyard. Her enthusiasm is clear and her writing voice is unique perfectly landing somewhere between informative and conversational. I suspect she would be a kindred spirit of Mary Oliver’s. A brilliant book for the start of autumn and for anyone interested in nature. A very solid five stars.

The Comfort of Crows
By Margaret Renkl

This is a very different book. It is the story of nature and the changes that happen throughout the year. The author talks about birds and foxes and other creatures who have a symbiotic relationship with the snow and rain, the grasses and weeds, the flowers and their seeds – and how all these things sustain each other.

There is no suspense or thrill in this book, no romance or horror. Instead this is a quiet book. That's as it should be for book about listening to and watching all that goes on in the natural world around us.

The Comfort of Crows is a magical look at the every day wonders of nature, as documented over a year by one Margaret Renkl. She has a way of highlighting the absolute beauty of the things we take for granted right outside our front doors.

The book takes us through a year in the life, every chapter representing Renkl’s musings for the week. While some chapters are more vibrant than others, there’s this through line of wonder that makes it lovely to read. Interspersed with gorgeous art, this really is a nice book to read when you need to be reminded of the beauty in little things. I’ll be the first to admit that this has had me looking more closely at the world around me.

What particularly spoke to me is the human-ness of it all. Renkl acknowledges her fears about the environment and the world, her missteps in wildlife care, and the things that haunt her, as much as she talks about the beauty. She’s worked for her knowledge and her wonder, but she’s not perfect. Regardless, she learns and she grows, and sometimes she can’t help but be happy an animal has food, even if that food is an invasive plant (or a beloved visitor to her yard).

It’s a call to all who love the world to take care of her, and do your best to keep learning, growing, and wondering, too.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Comfort of Crows is a series of 52 essays representing a year divided into four seasons. I previously read and loved Late Migrations, savoring each chapter. Renkl’s beautiful writing continues to focus on the interconnection between us and the nature just outside our back doors. The tone of this book was more somber and reflective on climate change, of species in decline, and reflections on her own mortality as she grows older and her children have become grown. One of my favorite passages:

“But perhaps the reason I didn’t feel sad about the onset of fall when I was younger is only that I was younger, with my whole life still ahead. In those days my only worry was that my real life, the one I would choose for myself and live on my own terms, was taking too long to arrive. Now I understand that every day I’m given is as real as life will ever get. Now I understand that we are guaranteed nothing, that our days have always been running out.”

Renkl gave me a lot to think about and reflect on my own life, whether I welcome it or not!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I've read VERY few nonfiction books this year. Here's one! This was beautiful. I pre-ordered a copy to own before I even finished and plan to read it as in like read that season as we enter the season: it has 52 chapters that follow the natural world through the year. Free advanced copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review, book comes out Oct 24

"We were never cast out of Eden. We merely turned from it and shut our eyes. To return and be welcomed, cleansed and redeemed, we are only obliged to look." Lovely closing lines to the opening words in Margaret Renkl's offering, The Comfort of Crows.

This is a lovely book of ponderings, poems, praises for the natural world around us as we go through the weeks of the year. I would love a hard copy of this on my coffee table!

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl
I am sorry to say that I did not enjoy this book and had to DNF. This is more my fault than the author’s because I have read other books of hers and enjoyed them. This book is well written but it felt so doom filled that I found it too depressing to finish.

A Comfort of Crows is a lovely meditation on the changing of the seasons in nature. It was especially enjoyable because these are things from her backyard, not some exotic location. They encompass things those of us with even a little wilderness around us can witness. It’s a reminder of the small joys that nature gives us almost daily, if we take the time to look.
The book is written as 52 chapters, one for each week of the year. It’s a book that can be savored over time, that can be repeatedly picked up. It’s a gentle reminder to appreciate the beauty around us.
I had to laugh at the “owl pellet” segment. Only a dog lover can appreciate what her find actually was.
There are pictures between each of the chapters. This might be a book better suited to a paper copy or an e-reader that does color, as the pictures are black and white on the kindle. I was able to use the kindle app on my iPad to view the beautiful pictures.
My thanks to Netgalley and Spiegal & Grau for an advance copy of this book.

I love this book. I have already pre-ordered it for me and for a friend. I was moved by Renkl’s sense of joy and heartbreak held at the same time: “The greenness that rises out the ashes.” She knows that the world is burning, that we are responsible. And yet she’s able to stop and take pleasure in all the is still here. The tension between woman and nature is exquisite. Each essay is an examination of life: Renkl’s, the wildlife in her yard, her neighborhood, her state, the world. Her family’s. This is a book that I will read, slowly, each year, I think.

I LOVE Margaret Renkl! This book is beautiful. The artwork is stunning! I am challenged to spend more time looking at the things around me. I realized just how much in nature I have missed.

Loved this book so much that I have pre-ordered a copy from Parnassus Books in Nashville! I can't wait to read it again and see all Margaret's brother's illustrations in full color and texture. If you haven't read it, Margaret's other books, or her weekly NYT columns, I highly recommend them all!

Margaret Renkl's nature writing is absolutely beautiful. I will definitely be purchasing a physical copy to re-read next year, week by week.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-copy.

I adored this book. I cannot wait to get my hands on a hard copy to keep next to my bed. This is partly a memoir, part nature diary, part meditation. It is divided by seasons and further divided by weeks in the season. Bite size essays on varying things going on in the authors life, but also in nature during that time of the year. It can be read all the way through or you can skip to the current season and start there if you want to follow the seasons. Easy to dip on and out of and always a delight. An absolute 5 stars.