Book review: The Feather Thief by Kirk Johnson

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


For those of you who enjoy “Moby Dick” as a tale of obsession, welcome to a real-life version. This book takes you into the world of rare birds, their feathers, and the obsessive world of the Victorian era art of salmon fly-tying. Specifically, the book starts with a lengthy and detailed history of rare birds and their collectors. It then moves into the role of feathers in the salmon fly-tying. And, finally, it discusses the lengths to which salmon fly-tiers will go to obtain feathers from endangered birds for their flies, including stealing from the Tring Museum in Britain, resulting in an incalculable loss to ornithological history.
The book is both a history of rare birds and a biography of the twenty year old thief and what may (or may not) have led him to break into the Tring to steal hundreds of specimens. Unfortunately, there are no satisfactory answers–only a peek into the dark underworld of fly-tying and a young man’s obsession.



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