Susan Casey’s Voices in the Ocean made me fall deeply in love with dolphins, those intelligent, highly social mammals of the sea, then tore my heart out by describing the appalling abuses they receive at the hands of our species. Deeply sad after her father died unexpectedly, Casey was in the middle of a perhaps ill advised solo swim across Honolua Bay when she encountered a large pod, forty or fifty animals, of gently chattering spinner dolphins swimming toward her. Instead of just passing by, they swam with her for a while, lifting her spirits almost like magic and setting her on a worldwide dolphin odyssey.

Casey traveled to some wonderfully quirky places, like the new-agey Dolphinville on Hawaii’s Big Island, where 200-some people live, work, meditate, and swim with wild dolphins together. But she also visited marine parks and tourist pleasing “swim with the dolphins” sites, where community-loving dolphins are isolated and kept in slave like conditions, and she connected with dolphin activists in several parts of the world where dolphins are slaughtered in mass numbers, often because it’s believed they eat fish that should be food for people and sometimes, even more horribly, just for spite. Sea pollution and the US Navy’s underwater sonar are other human activities that have had a devastating impact on dolphins.

Along the way Casey sought out researchers who’ve studied dolphins, so the book is a mixture of science, history, personal experience, and social commentary. It’s beautifully and movingly written, and I especially loved reading about the evolutionary background of dolphins, the special qualities their large brains endow them with, the eons long and mostly wonderful history of human-dolphin interactions, and the fascinating characteristics of dolphin societies--Casey compares them to an ancient tribe.

The abuses were painful to read about, but I’m glad to be better informed. And Casey ends the book on an up note by summarizing what is known about the intriguing, apparently dolphin-loving Minoan civilization and describing her visit to the art-rich Minoan archaeological sites and museums of Santorini and Crete--Minoan art is both colorful and beautiful, and definitely worth Google-imaging.

This beautiful memoir is as utterly wonderful as it sounds. Written by a woman who wakes every morning to a symphony of songs, chatter, and calls from the 350 birds of 40 species that’s she’s rescued and housed in colorful and imaginatively decorated aviaries in her back and side yards, I was almost cooing with happiness as I read. It’s pages are packed with lively avian personalities, birds who scheme, talk, tease, fall in love, cope, connect, dance, mourn, celebrate, and pick cage locks. There are moving stories of mistreated birds saved, abandoned birds given a home, and lonely birds found a mate.

Author Michele Raffin’s interest in birds began almost by accident but quickly grew into an overwhelming, almost all-consuming obsession. Her book chronicles the joys, disappointments, triumphs, and heartbreaks of the personal hobby that she grew into an official nonprofit sanctuary, breeding and saving birds who are endangered in the wild and using outreach programs to educate the public about the plight of birds and the acute need for conservation. Written in a conversational style that makes this a fast and enjoyable read, there is obviously a serious side to its message too.

The only thing that would make me love this book more would be if it had color photos because I’d love to see all those wonderful birds, including Sweetie, a tiny joy-filled quail who was meant to be somebody’s supper, Oscar, a Lady Gouldian finch who hops determinedly from perch to perch to roost with his mates at the top of the aviary because he can’t fly, Tico, an incorrigible, too smart for his own good but affectionate blue and gold macaw, and Amadeus, a one legged Lady Ross’s turaco who perches precariously on the laps of autistic boys that come to visit, but won’t come that close to anyone else. I read an advanced review copy of this book supplied by the publisher so it’s possible the final version will have pictures. The review opinions are mine.

UPDATE: I got a hardback copy of the finished book and it has 16 stunning pages with gorgeous color photographs of the birds and the aviary.

I love reading about the exploits of interesting people traversing parts of the world I’ve never seen, and this exuberant biography of a Manhattan dress designer turned international explorer held me rapt with one caveat that I’ll explain at the end.

Ruth Harkness did not come from a wealthy, sophisticated family, but with determination, a flair for design, and a savvy intelligence that allowed her to read people Harkness managed to create a cosmopolitan New York City life for herself, even in the midst of  the 1930’s Great Depression. She fell in love with then married a rich boy adventurer who hoped to be the first to bring a live panda out of China and into the US. When he died in the process, Harkness surprised all her high fashion, socialite friends by deciding she would be the one to take on his mission.

Harkness ended up loving China, especially the wild, rugged, mountainous, densely forested, far western areas where the giant panda makes its home, and it’s thrilling to read about her rough and tumble travels, the variety of local people she spent time with, and the off-the-map exotic places she visited. But Harkness didn’t avoid China’s urban areas entirely. There was  plenty of Euro-American drinking and partying when she stopped in international cities like Shanghai to gather the team, funds, and provisions needed for her venture, but unlike many contemporary Westerners she respected the Chinese culture and treated her Chinese expedition guide like a partner, even briefly having a love affair with him.

When Harkness successfully brought a baby panda out of China much was made of the fact that though she was “just a woman” she succeeded where many men had failed--so far the men had been shooting pandas and bringing back their pelts. Harkness treated “her” panda with great care, trying to understand its needs and sacrificing her own comforts, but the caveat I mentioned in the first sentence is that it makes me uncomfortable and sad to read about a baby animal being taken from its mother and native habitat to be put in a zoo. Harkness agonized about this too, even releasing back into the wild another panda she captured.

Other than that, I totally fell under the spell of this lively, enthusiastically written book. The author had access to a trove of personal letters written by Harkness, and retraced some of Harkness’s journey herself, so while reading it was easy to imagine I was right there, experiencing it all myself.