Rating: 
Summary: A Great Read
Review: I really enjoyed this book. These guys are a little nuts but their adventures and misadventures make for a very entertaining book.
The author is really humorous and has a great gift for writing. I felt like I was right there and really cared about the outcome of this mad quest.
I usually read more than one book at a time but I pretty much read this one straight through.
Rating: 
Summary: Reads like one long newspaper article
Review: I was surprised how the author could write such a boring book about such an exciting event. The writing is very choppy, 2 of the 3 characters come off as overindulgent, pompous and greedy and there's very little description of the wonderful places and birds the competitors encounter.If you really want to get a good feel for birding or a Big Year, read Ken Kauffmann's "Kingbird Highway". This book is really a disservice to birders.
Rating: 
Summary: Psycho about Birds
Review: I'm not a birder, although I did get a kick out of seeing a roadrunner yesterday. I'm not a birder, but I love stories about obsessives, people who literally cannot control their urge to...anything. Run, golf, see concerts, collect coins, whatever. Obmascik creates a great tale around these three bird guys, and it was fascinating to see what they would do to see ONE MORE bird. This guy can flat out write. I'm familiar with some of his newspaper reporting on environmental and other issues. He really masters his subjects, this one included.
Rating:
Summary: Into the Hunt
Review: Mark Obmascik can really write. I enjoyed this fast moving, insightful story about the world of competitive bird watching. Obmascik seduces the reader into caring about the ultimate outcome of this zany competition as he writes with humor, affection, and obvious admiration about each of the three top competitors in The Big Year. While I am not a birdwatcher, I was completely drawn into the hunt! I even learned a few fascinating facts along the way. Bravo, Mr. Obmascik!
Rating:
Summary: Great fun
Review: Mark Obmascik can write! His wit and writing skills make this book a delight to read, even if birding is not your sport.The three competitors in The Big Year are so different, but so compulsive and colorful that they totally captivate you. Suspense and fun are all part of this charming book. I might just try my hand at birding.
Rating:
Summary: The Obsession of Birding
Review: Mark Obmascik has documented the "Big Year" of three extreme birders - Sandy Komito, Al Levantin and Greg Miller - as they try to beat a record and each other during 1998. This is more a sporting competition than natural history or science. They could just as easily had been train spotting for the largest number of different boxcars. The goal is of course to record the largest number of bird species seen in one year and they have a tough standard to play against. James Vardaman had recorded 699 birds in 1979, Benton Basham had seen 711 in 1983, Komito himself had gotten 721 in 1987, and Bill Rydell had gotten 714 in 1992. In 1998 all were trying to beat 721 and all were unbelievably driven. I won't tell you who won, but it certainly is a remarkable tale indeed! As a sometimes birder who is a professional biologist I understand the thrill of the chase and at least these listers are not killing their quarry. However, I am a bit astonished at the amount of money and time some of these extreme birders will spend to get over 700 birds on their list in a year. I have only about 250 birds on my life list (I'm not against listing) and I doubt that I will ever make 500 for my life. The story of their competition to reach over 721 birds in a single year is gripping, but I tend to agree with at least one of the left behind wives that they are also a little bit out of their minds. Everybody has a right to follow their dream (as long as they don't hurt others in the process) and birding is relatively harmless. I personally would prefer to get to know the birds a bit better than that. Perhaps that is a bit of academic snobbishness, but it is also my individual taste. In any case I recommend this book to anyone who would like to try to understand the drive to record the maximum number of birds seen in a year.
Rating:
Summary: The Obsession of Birding
Review: Mark Obmascik has documented the "Big Year" of three extreme birders - Sandy Komito, Al Levantin and Greg Miller - as they try to beat a record and each other during 1998. This is more a sporting competition than natural history or science. They could just as easily had been train spotting for the largest number of different boxcars. The goal is of course to record the largest number of bird species seen in one year and they have a tough standard to play against. James Vardaman had recorded 699 birds in 1979, Benton Basham had seen 711 in 1983, Komito himself had gotten 721 in 1987, and Bill Rydell had gotten 714 in 1992. In 1998 all were trying to beat 721 and all were unbelievably driven. I won't tell you who won, but it certainly is a remarkable tale indeed! As a sometimes birder who is a professional biologist I understand the thrill of the chase and at least these listers are not killing their quarry. However, I am a bit astonished at the amount of money and time some of these extreme birders will spend to get over 700 birds on their list in a year. I have only about 250 birds on my life list (I'm not against listing) and I doubt that I will ever make 500 for my life. The story of their competition to reach over 721 birds in a single year is gripping, but I tend to agree with at least one of the left behind wives that they are also a little bit out of their minds. Everybody has a right to follow their dream (as long as they don't hurt others in the process) and birding is relatively harmless. I personally would prefer to get to know the birds a bit better than that. Perhaps that is a bit of academic snobbishness, but it is also my individual taste. In any case I recommend this book to anyone who would like to try to understand the drive to record the maximum number of birds seen in a year.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting book
Review: Mark Obmascik has provided an interesting account of an unusual birding event.
Rating:
Summary: Seeing Is Believing
Review: Mark Obmascik's descriptions of the birds and the people who chase them are fabulous. What a great adventure they all had and I enjoyed it as well by reading about it. I felt that I saw the birds, based on the detailed drawings in my mind from this gifted storyteller. The frosting on the cake was hearing him read an excerpt at a book signing event. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: The Thrill of Obsessiveness, the Agony of Competition
Review: Some people collect stamps, some review books, some watch birds. Everybody needs a hobby. But there is bird-watching which is an appreciation of evolution's bountiful supply of feathered creatures, and then there is bird-watching which is a competitive, nay, ultracompetitive year-long sport. The latter is hilariously chronicled in _The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession_ (Free Press) by Mark Obmascik. The book is the story of three men at the top of their game, each racing to determine who during the year 1998 could see (or hear; hearing the call of a bird counts) the most species of North American birds, and maybe break the record for such competition. Most readers will agree that these men are obsessed, and it isn't too nasty or inaccurate to call them completely nuts, but one can't really criticize anyone for a hobby. These guys are different, that's all, and you might even spot the differences physically. Their collar sizes increase from looking up at birds (a condition called "warbler neck") and they risk cervical nerve damage from the strap of their equipment ("binocular neck"). It is an unforgiving sport. Here is the cast of characters. Sandy Komito is a loud-mouthed, deliberately abrasive retired New Jersey industrial contractor who had won the 1987 Big Year, and still held that record of 721 birds. Al Levantin is a multiply-retired chief executive with a mansion in the mountains near Aspen. He can buy trips to anywhere to see birds, but he cannot conquer crippling seasickness to spot the pelagic ones easily. Greg Miller is a computer programmer who at the time was busy debugging Y2K problems out of software at the nuclear plant where he worked. He is miserable. He is newly and unhappily divorced, broke, out of shape, and with only birding as the passion that keeps him going. Unlike the other two, he is trying to do a Big Year while he holds down a job. The thing that really made 1998 so special was that it was the year of the strongest El Niño on record, and the resultant freak weather patterns brought storms and wayward winds to the continent. Riding the storms were birds who had been blown away from their own lands or migrations, the "vagrants and accidentals" by which a record year is set. Many experts think that 1998's record may never be broken. Obmascik puts the annual birding competition into historical perspective. Audubon wasn't out to make a year record when he challenged himself to paint all American birds life-sized. Roger Tory Peterson wasn't out to make a record when, in 1953, he mentioned off-hand that he had seen 572 species that year. But Peterson's comment set off every subsequent Big Year. Obmascik tells the story of the epochal 1998 competition with verve and humor, using a jokey prose that sometimes indicates that he (a birder himself) cannot believe in the strangeness of the quest of these obsessives. There are a few incidences of camaraderie, and even some honor-bound help that one competitor condescends to offer another, but largely, this is a volume full of cut-throat birding. Whether you have any interest in this odd passion or not, these three guys all had an unforgettable year, here vividly reported in a delightful book.
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