Flutterby™! : Wesley the Owl

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Wesley the Owl

2008-11-14 17:45:55.191417+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

We were in the bookstore last week, and while I picked up Twinkie, Deconstructed[Wiki], Charlene picked up Wesley The Owl, by Stacey O'Brien. It's the autobiographical story of a young woman working at the Caltech labs who takes in a barn owl with neurological damage in its wing, and the 19 subsequent years that the two lived together. Simple sentences, not a complex read, but a fascinating and tear-jerking look into human-animal relationships, owls, and biology in general. The talk of the halls and quirky characters at Caltech made me remember aspects of Pixar[Wiki] fondly, there were a bunch of laugh out loud moments, and some waaay too cute pictures, though they're black and white and low quality, so I'll be looking for the threatened additional media.

[ related topics: Pixar Books Photography Nature and environment ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2008-11-14 18:19:46.579651+00 by: topspin

Rather aside, here, as I was curious about Twinkie, Deconstructed. Perhaps I don't get out enough, but WTF happens to the website in Firefox that doesn't in Explorer? That's just ugly.

And, Wesley, what a beautiful bird! I can see this book as a gift for someone I know.... thanks!

#Comment Re: made: 2008-11-14 22:39:02.675155+00 by: Dan Lyke

Re the ugliness: Yeah, often kludges to make things render in IE screw them up for Firefox, you can generally "View->Page Style->No Style" to turn off stylesheets and read 'em, when necessary.

I enjoyed Twinkie, Deconstructed[Wiki], but I left wanting more. Perhaps that's a good thing, having now had a glimpse into how Polysorbate 60 is made, a look at the process by which it was determined to be okay for human consumption would also be really cool. I also think the book was marred by a couple of glitches that I think anyone who'd had high school chemistry should have caught. So it's not a "you have to read this!", but it was engrossing, I feel smarter for having read it, and I'm now more interested in chasing down things like the vitamin and supplement supply chain, and figuring out more about where my food comes from.

As I write this I find myself becoming more enthusiastic about it, so it's a book that grows on me.