Birds on the Cover
Read a book with a bird on the cover! All-Year Reading Challenge • 2024
January 22, 2024
While these covers feature our feathered friends, the stories within span genres, promising a diverse reading experience.
Use this booklist to fulfill a reading challenge prompt in our All-Year Reading Challenge!
Fiction
Other Birds
Sarah Allen
Arriving on Mallow Island, right off the coast of South Carolina, to claim her late mother’s apartment, Zoey meets her eccentric and secretive neighbors, including a girl on the run, a lonely chef, a legendary writer and three ghosts, each with their own stories whose endings haven’t been written yet.
When We Were Birds
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
The introduction of a singularly stunning new voice in fiction, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We Were Birds is a mythic love story set in contemporary Trinidad & Tobago about two young outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.
When Stone Wings Fly
Karen Barnett
Kieran’s grandmother is slipping into dementia, and, when she is gone, Kieran’s last tie to the family she barely knows will be lost. Uncovering a long-lost family story is the only way to bring her grandmother peace.
Parakeet
Marie-Helene Bertino
Visited by a bird she believes to be the spirit of her late grandmother days before her wedding, a bride receives a warning not to get married and embarks on a frantic search for her long-lost brother.
Probably Ruby
Lisa Bird-Wilson
Spanning time and multiple points of view, a new voice in indigenous fiction introduces us to Ruby, a bold, complex and unapologetic woman who, adopted by white parents, goes in search of her identity as her life spins wildly out of control.
The Christmas Hummingbird
Davis Bunn
As policewoman and single mother Ryan Eames and newcomer Ethan Lange work on an animal rescue operation together, they are drawn into something deeper and surprising by her extraordinarily gifted son that makes Christmas in Miramar Bay a season of love, healing and second chances.
Unleashed
Cai Emmons
As Lu and George Barnes and their daughter Pippa grow apart, tensions outside the family mount as well; women have been disappearing across the country with no worldly explanation, all while California’s wildfire season brings about a surprising reckoning that none of them can avoid.
This Is How You Lose The Time War
Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters and soon fall in love, even though the discovery of their bond could mean death for each of them.
The Unhoneymooners
Christina Lauren
Partnered with a nemesis best man on a paradise honeymoon when her bride twin gets food poisoning, a chronically unlucky maid of honor assumes the role of a newlywed before unexpectedly falling for her companion.
Songbirds
Christy Lefteri
A poacher who traps songbirds in Cyprus and sells them on the black market, Yiannis dreams of finding a new way of life with his love, Nisha, but when Nisha disappears, he works with her employer to unravel the truth, taking him to the darker side of a migrant’s life.
The Book Of Goose
Yiyun Li
When her friend Fabienne passes away, Agnas is free to tell her story of a long-ago childhood in a war-ravaged French town, where Fabienne hatched a plan that changed everything, sending Agnas on an epic journey through fame, fortune and terrible loss.
All The Little Bird-Hearts
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is clever headstrong Dolly, now on the cusp of leaving home.
After The End
Clare Mackintosh
Disagreeing for the first time when their son falls ill and they receive conflicting doctor recommendations, a devoted couple finds a unique way for both of their preferences to become possible.
Chouette
Claire Oshetsky
After her owl-baby daughter is born small and broken-winged, a mother vows to raise the child to be her authentic self but discovers that her husband is on an obsessive and dangerous quest to find a “cure.”
Love After Love
Ingrid Persaud
An award-winning Trinidadian author offers a novel that looks at a complicated marriage, an unconventional family and the shocking secrets that unite them.
Cher Ami And Major Whittlesey
Kathleen Rooney
A tale based on true events follows the experiences of an army officer who answers the call to service during World War II before his life is astonishingly reshaped by his battlefield encounters with a messenger pigeon.
See What I Have Done
Sarah Schmidt
A reimagining of the Borden murders profiles an abusive home where the events surrounding the killing of the parents are presented from the viewpoints of Lizzie Borden, her elder sister, their housemaid, and an enigmatic stranger.
Speak Of The Devil
Rose Wilding
On New Year’s Eve, 1999, seven women, gathered together in a hotel room on midnight with a man’s head sitting in the center of the floor, must figure out which one killed Jamie Spellman in order to protect each other.
Still Life
Sarah Winman
In 1944 Tuscany, as Allied troops advance, a young English soldier has a chance encounter with a middle-aged art historian with whom he finds a kindred spirit and who sets him off on a course of events that will shape his life for the next four decades.
Nonfiction
What An Owl Knows
The New Science Of The World’s Most Enigmatic Birds
Jennifer Ackerman
Illuminating the rich biology and natural history of owls, the most elusive of birds–and often a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and foresight–the New York Times best-selling author of The Genius of Birds takes us around the globe and through human history to understand the complex nature of these extraordinary creatures.
Birdgirl
Looking To The Skies In Search Of A Better Future
Mya-Rose Craig
A young environmental activist shares her experiences of traveling the world in search of rare birds and astonishing landscapes and her passion for social justice and dedication to preserving our planet.
The Bald Eagle
The Improbable Journey Of America’s Bird
Jack E Davis
Featuring stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers and the lives of bald eagles themselves, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf presents a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America, demonstrating how this bird’s wondrous journey may provide inspiration today.
100 Plants To Feed The Birds
Turn Your Home Garden Into A Healthy Bird Habitat
Laura Erickson
An award-winning birder and science editor offers an easy-reference guide profiling the planting and care of the 100 best native plants for providing food and homes to local and migrating birds.
A Wing And A Prayer
The Race To Save Our Vanishing Birds
Anders Gyllenhaal, Beverly Gyllenhaal
A captivating drama from the frontlines of the race to save birds set against the devastating loss of one third of the avian population.
The Falcon Thief
A True Tale Of Adventure, Treachery, And The Hunt For The Perfect Bird
Joshua Hammer
Documents the true story of Irish national Jeffrey Lendrum and his globetrotting adventures as a smuggler of rare birds, detailing the efforts of British wildlife detective Andy McWilliam to protect the world’s endangered birds of prey.
Vesper Flights
New And Collected Essays
Helen Macdonald
The award-winning author of H Is for Hawk presents a collection of top-selected essays about humanity’s relationship with nature, exploring subjects ranging from captivity and immigration to ostrich farming and the migrations of songbirds from the Empire State Building.
Jacques Pepin: Art Of The Chicken
Jacques Pepin
Inviting readers into his home, the legendary chef and winner of 16 James Beard Awards shares his lifelong love of chicken through his favorite recipes, his paintings and an abundance of poignant and often humorous stories from his celebrated history.
The Comfort Of Crows
A Backyard Year
Margaret Renkl
The beloved New York Times opinion writer and best-selling author presents this stunning literary devotional that follows the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of the year, tracing the passing of the seasons, personal and natural.
Find More Birds
111 Surprising Ways To Spot Birds Wherever You Are
Heather Wolf
A photo-filled trove of tips for seeing more birds wherever you look, from crowd favorites (hummingbirds, owls, eagles) to species you’ve never spotted before.
Memoir
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
The author and poet recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.
Gorilla And The Bird
A Memoir Of Madness And A Mother’s Love
Zack McDermott
The author, a Brooklyn public defender, describes the devastating psychotic break that took him from New York back to his roots in Kansas, where his tough Midwestern mother helped him return to sanity and rebuild a stable life.