ICL Reads Announces the 2024 Book Selection: “The Feather Thief” by Kirk Wallace Johnson
2024 Program
ICL Reads! is a program open to all ICL members. Each year, a book with “Big Ideas” is selected and participating members share the experience of reading the book simultaneously with other members to create a Reading Community. The program encourages open discussion of the concepts and content introduced in the selected title via Study Groups, special events and social media.
On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London’s Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin’s obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin’s, Alfred Russel Wallace, who’d risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man’s relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man’s destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
Book Pre-Registration & Pick Up: Book supply is limited and returns will not be necessary. To reserve your copy for contactless, curbside pick-up in the Circle Drive at the Main Entrance of the Roosevelt Campus on Monday, January 8 (11:30 AM – 1:00 PM), e-mail maryloubleeg@sbcglobal.net. You will receive confirmation of your request. Please bring a copy of your confirmation to book pick-up or have access to it on your phone. Read the book and join the conversation. Access to the book via retail, local libraries and digital libraries is also an option if you are unable to pick one up. ACT NOW TO RESERVE YOUR COPY!
Two Book Discussions – March 11, 2024 beginning at 10:00 am (On Campus) and March 18, beginning at 1:00 pm (Zoom)
Virtual Events this Spring will include Guest Speakers: Jeff Mishur, Vice President and Co-owner of Art Excursions, Lilli Holden of the Chicago Bird Alliance, Fredrick Hannie, Fly-tying expert and Erica Duijzer, Senior Director of the Autism Clinic at Hope. A printable brochure will be provided when available.
Join ICL Reads! on Facebook
Follow these steps to join ICL Reads! on Facebook for additional opportunities to experience the book and to join the conversation. ICL Reads! maintains the page when programming is in progress.
