The race to be the best bird watcher in North America.
Birding. It just doesn't sound exciting, but in the hands of environmental journalist Mark Obmascik, the race to be the best bird watcher in North America becomes a charming and engrossing story.

Obmascik, an avid outdoorsman and engaging writer, interviewed the three main contenders in 1998's Big Year contest, a competition held annually with the spoils going to the contestant who can spot the largest number of different species within a single calendar year. Obmascik's descriptions are so intense, fast-paced and well-informed that you would never know from listening to this that he wasn't with them every flight, boat ride and hike of the way.

The contestants are fascinating and hail from various walks of life. There's Sandy Komito, a previous Big Year winner and wise-cracking contractor from Jersey who's so obnoxious he's actually difficult to root for. Al Levitan is a pleasant businessman from Colorado who has plenty of money and time to spend chasing elusive birds. Greg Miller, an overweight computer programmer for a nuclear power plant in Maryland, is fulfilling a life dream with this quest. Of the three, Miller is the underdog who maxes out his credit cards and borrows money from his parents in order to finish his Big Year. Each is on his own in this a no-holds-barred, free-for-all that covers huge amounts of land and time.

By the time the winner is announced, we have traveled with these men from British Columbia to Massachusetts and Texas. We get a bit of the history of birding, including a mini-bio of John James Audubon. Obmascik's descriptions are vivid — a yellow rail is the "Greta Garbo of the bird world" — and he delves into the backgrounds of each of his protagonists in an attempt to uncover the characteristics that drive them to chase quail. In the end, The Big Year is a book about man's need to conquer and to categorize — and to crow.

Narrator Oliver Wyman has a comforting, everyman voice. He sounds pleasant and sweet and a bit bemused, which quite fits Obmascik's tone. The odd tale of three possessed men and the birds they adore requires a reader who can find the humor in their obsession.