An interesting and informative, if somewhat dismaying, semi-biography of audobon. Not sure when I'll be able to look at the drawings again without some of the gruesome scenes from the book clouding my vision ( )

A pleasure to read. Previously I was dimly aware of Audubon's background beyond the acclaimed naturalist who painted life-size birds (if you ever get to see the original size of the folios, they are *massive). Who knew that he was a bastard son of a sea captain (inb4 "Hey should this be shoved at [a:Lin-Manuel Miranda|5725556|Lin-Manuel Miranda|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1439932375p2/5725556.jpg]?") and self-trained naturalist could go toe-to-toe with European zoologists and then some, yet at the same time build up his persona as a roguish American frontiersmen with embellishments and some outright zoological fabrications (the description of rattlesnakes as tree-dwellers, for example)?

I would have liked to see some of the prints referenced (especially those in the chapters' epigraphs), but there are plenty of other books for that. ( )

Not quite as good as Rhodes, but I liked this slightly better than Hart-Davis' book on Audubon. It's a more psychologically-based account than Rhodes' or Hart-Davis' books, but Souder stays out of the speculative realm (appropriately). ( )