The Genius of Birds

By: Jennifer Ackerman

Narrated by: Margaret Strom

Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight.

©2016 Jennifer Ackerman. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"[Narrator Margaret] Strom sounds suitably amazed by it all, too--a fine match of material and voice." ( AudioFile)

Great book, Narrator not so much

Would you listen to The Genius of Birds again? Why?

I would read this book again, but probably not listen. The narrator seems to forget that this is not a fiction story. her random pauses, and general reading cadence just does not work with a non fiction book. At first it didn't bother me, but at times, her cadence and varying tone is more distracting and I cannot focus on the information being presented.

Who was your favorite character and why?

non fiction book-no charecters

How could the performance have been better?

If the narrator did not add her own punctuation, or read it like a fictional book.

Any additional comments?

I am glad I purchased this as a physical book so I can go back and read it.

Fascinating topic, odd narration

A great layperson's overview of bird cognition, but the narrator's odd pronunciations and weird mid-sentence pauses were distracting.

Asks the right questions

I enjoy how this book makes you think about what's really going on in a bird's brain. Ackerman does a great job of bringing in scientific studies and anecdotal evidence to create one day and to inform while still allowing for other possibilities to be true.
She is honest about the anecdotal evidence and doesn't use it as absolute truth, but still creates wonder.

Excellent book

it's mind boggling how smart birds are. even if you know a lot about this, the book lays our very thoroughly the thinking and findings in this field and it has tremendous implications for all sorts of other areas in society and science

Wonderful anecdotal and scientific data

very good information about a limited number of different species, with interesting significance for human research. some of us familiar with birds and books on birds may be familiar with a lot presented here. the navigation chapter was my favorite!

Fascinating

I am an avid birder and learned so much from this book. I will listen to again for sure.

Inaccuracies

Some good info— but what do you trust when there are glaring errors eg. Monarch are not the mimickers of viceroy butterflies— it is the opposite. I also had problems with the reader who mispronounced several scientific words-including “ ornithologist “ on one occasion.

wonderful insight!

The author had me laughing then the next minute awing in amazement at the fantastic intellect of birds!

Fascinating

Loved this! Learned a lot of new information. It was well written and well read.

Not bad

It’s a decent book. It Gets a little boring at the end but still interesting