Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All by Luke Dempsey

Product Details

Synopsis

It was an epiphany: The moment two friends showed Luke Dempsey a small bird flitting around the bushes of his country garden, he fell madly in love. But did he really want to be a birder? Didn’t that mean he’d be forced to eat granola? And wear a man-pouch? Before he knew it, though, he was lost to birding mania. Early mornings in Central Park gave way to weekend mornings wandering around Pennsylvania, which morphed into weeklong trips to Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Florida—anywhere the birds were.A Supremely Bad Idea is one man’s account of an epic journey around America, all in search of the rarest and most beautiful birds the country has to offer. But the birds are only part of it. There are also his crazy companions, Don and Donna Graffiti, who obsess over Dempsey’s culinary limitations and watch in horror as an innocent comment in a store in Arizona almost turns into an international incident; as a trip through wild Florida turns into a series of (sometimes poetic) fisticuffs; and as he teeters at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, a displaced Brit falling in love all over again, this time with his adopted country.Both a paean to avian beauty and a memoir of the back roads of America, A Supremely Bad Idea is a supremely fun comic romp: an environmentally sound This Is Spinal Tap with binoculars.

Henry T. Armistead - Library Journal

Dempsey, a transplanted Brit and editor in chief of Hudson Street Press, entertainingly recounts his passion for bird watching as he meanders with two birder friends to birding hot spots in Florida, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Washington State, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York's Central Park, enjoying misadventures and good times along the way. Dempsey is not averse to using occasional obscenities as well as beautifully turned phrases by way of contrast. His picaresque account features several quirky recurring leitmotifs: peculiar signage encountered in his travels, the author's like or dislike of tomatoes and their end products, his divorce and two daughters, and his confrontations with rude people. To one very overweight, obnoxious family he quips as a parting shot, "Have you considered salads?" Dempsey can also be informative and engagingly partisan, as when he describes complex ecological problems such as those found in the Everglades. Throughout, the book is imbued with his appreciation of the wonders, beauty, and fragility of the natural world. A bit lightweight for hard-core birders, this should appeal to general readers interested in nature. Recommended for larger public libraries.

Biography

Luke Dempsey is the editor in chief of Hudson Street Press, a division of Penguin USA. He lives in New York City. This is his first book.