Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America

In this Pulitzer Prize-finalist biography, the author of Mad at the World examines the little-known life of the man behind the well-known bird survey.



John James Audubon is renowned for his masterpiece of natural history and art, The Birds of America, the first nearly comprehensive survey of the continent's birdlife. And yet few people understand, and many assume incorrectly, what sort of man he was. How did the illegitimate son of a French sea captain living in Haiti, who lied both about hi...