I just read the most awesome book. Martin Davies' novel, The Conjurer's Bird is described in a cover blurb as "part treasure hunt, part scientific mystery" and it is certainly both of those things but also so very much more. There are two storylines set more than 200 years apart - Joseph Banks and his journey with Captain Cook in the 1770s (and his resulting career as the preeminent British natural historian of his day) and that of Jack Ferguson his neighbor Katya and the search for bird that was found on a subsequent Cook journey and never - ever - seen again. The bits about Banks and his travels and the bird are all 100% true. The bit about Banks and his romance are purely fictional (although Davies does show in a brief note at the end why he thought he wrote that romance and how it was based on in real life). Ferguson, a taxidermist and someone who was once obsessed with discovering all the extinct birds in history, is certainly fiction but he's a fascinating creation and the story that builds around his surprising quest is impossible to put down.

You got that - impossible to put down.

It's mostly about finding that stuffed and preserved bird from Cook's expedition which might very well be out there in someone's attic. Jack doesn't want to deal with this but gets sucked in by the presence of a former girlfriend (and biologist) and her new boyfriend. Katya also can't turn away from the mystery (it is pretty fascinating) and there's a crazy American collector, the possibility of storing DNA and all manner of interesting Brits along the way who might know something or might not. That all keeps the plot buzzing along. Every other chapter is about Banks though and you will totally fall for him (and be annoyed) as he finds himself becoming the person he always wanted to be but also loving someone he's not supposed to love (all that class business of course). And the woman he loves - oh man could she be any cooler? So awesome - totally awesome. I loved her to no end. (And she's pragmatic - she does what she has to do to survive. Nice to to see that in the 18th century rather than a bunch of wailing and crying.)

I'm a total sucker for natural history and would have studied it in college if I knew that you could - yes I know that is a lame response but we never studied nature at all in my public school and the only reason I knew about Banks was from reading National Geographic (ditto Audubon). It is not only nature that interests me but the people who studied it hundreds of years ago, the things they discovered, the classification systems and their cabinets of wonder. All very cool. So I was a sucker for this book as soon as I saw what it was about. But you don't have to care about extinct birds to get caught up in the story and Davies has some major twists and turns (in both storylines) that will rock you on your heels. He really writes a good story and particularly fans of AS Byatt's Possession (another favorite of mine) need to seek this book out.

Ripping good read as they say - first rate from start to finish!