Birds and People

This is a uniquely beautiful and engrossing volume, absolutely drenched in knowledge and love - and more loaded with narrative than any wildlife book I’ve encountered before. It has literature, history, philosophy, folklore, travelogue, biography... Anyone who is interested in natural history will want a copy.

Jim Crace

Full of intense pleasure.

Derwent May, The Times

Birds and People is one of the great naturalist books of our time.

Christopher Hart, Sunday Times

A sumptuous encyclopedia of humanity’s relationship with birds.

Sunday Times

Encyclopedic and spellbinding… The sparkling prose never flags, and it is marvelously illustrated by the photographs of David Tipling.

Independent

Sumptuous and poignant… Birds and People is a beautiful anthem to the history and diversity of the relationship between birds and human beings.

Ruth Padel, Independent

If ever a book was timely, it is this gorgeously produced 600-page compendium of ornith- logical facts, images, myths and narratives.

John Burnside, New Statesman

David Tipling’s photographs…are irresistible. They are a feast of colour, history, display and insight… This treasure possesses the timelessness and the authority of a genuine magnum opus. It is encyclopaedic in its reach, covering birds in art, literature, dress, heraldry, industry, commerce, cooking, hunting, farming, philosophy, folklore and delight. It stretches way beyond natural history, but that is in there too. A book for all birds and all people.

John Lister-Kaye, Scotland on Sunday

In 600 pages enlivened with David Tipling’s photographs, Mark Cocker has built a magnificent avian ark: a book of everything birdy and birdish, and worth saving from countless and enduring entanglements with Homo sapiens… These pages are rich, sustaining and magically suggestive – all at the same time.

Tim Dee, BBC Wildlife

Birds and People is primarily a way of looking at our own complex history, through the prism of nature. It is also a beautiful volume, not least because of David Tipling’s excellent photographs… The results are stunning.

Stephen Moss, Sunday Telegraph

Packed with beauty, curiosity, fascination and wonder on every page, Birds and People is probably best not wolfed down but savoured bit by bit. It is a truly exceptional work, soaring in its scope, boundless in its interest, with an ambition matched only by its achievement… Strikes me as the sort of masterpiece that only comes along once or twice a decade.

Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

A tapestry that is by turns fascinating, delightful, surprising and grim. Birds and People rewards the idle browser and will be an important addition to the shelves of anyone who cares about how we interact with the non-human world or what sort of creatures we are becoming… David Tipling’s photographs…are gorgeous.

Caspar Henderson, Literary Review

A vast, ambitious and surprisingly personal overview of what birds mean to human beings... Birds and People is a dense, weighty delight, to be dipped into again and again as curiosity commands. Written with grace, conscientious stewardship and unfettered love, the book is a transformative look at the feathered dinosaurs that, despite all we have done to them, still grace our fields, forests and skies. Birds and People is an encyclopedia with a heart.

Julie Zickefoose, Wall Street Journal

A fascinating examination of the relationship between the human and avian worlds… This important book is a clarion call to treasure our birds – or risk losing them forever.

Daily Mail

Sumptuous and richly informative.

John Carey, Sunday Times

A monumental new account of the role birds play in human life.

Patrick Barkham, Guardian

The greatest joy of this great book is that it is unfinishable as well as unputdownable.

Brian Morton, Herald

A delightful duet between nature writer Mark Cocker and wildlife photographer David Tipling.

Nicky Clayton, Nature

Birds and People isn’t just a book for bird enthusiasts, but a thoughtful look at how one seemingly common creature can influence and enrich so much of our lives.

UK Regional Press

It’s a project with the ‘wow’ factor – and one that has you reaching for the superlatives.

Trevor Heaton, UK Regional Press Syndication

Encyclopedic in content, sumptuous in production and has the gripping, intensive quality of a classic potboiler. This wonderful book should never be confined to a dusty life on a shelf but regarded as a trusty, companion ready to give wise knowledge, faithful service and boundless enjoyment at every opportunity.

Stuart Winter, Sunday Express

[Cocker’s] magnificent new book is a work of encyclopedic proportion, a labour of love and, in unusual ways, a collaboration – and not just with the photographer David Tipling, whose images are as original and brilliantly distinguished as their feathered subjects.

Andrew McNellie, Country Life

Seven years in the making, Birds and People is a doorstep of a book that becomes a lifetime’s investment once owned, revealing many layers of both human and animal nature in the most absorbing of ways. It is as much a work of anthropology as ornithology, and all the better for it. Quite possibly Mark Cocker’s masterpiece.

David Callahan, Birdwatch

Magnificent… 600 stunningly illustrated and gorgeously produced pages.

James Bradley, Nothern Times

Visually rich, historically fascinating and vast in both scope and scale, this is a wonderful addition to any bookcase.

Mary Lussiana, Country & Town House

Cocker has collected hundreds of anecdotes that illustrate the relationship between humans and birds… He writes movingly about the part that birds play in our culture.

Molly Guinness, Spectator

For the unashamed bird-lover… A meticulous and caring study of how humans think about, imagine, use, misuse and abuse the most miraculous of our fellow creatures.

John Burnside, New Statesman

Birds and People by Mark Cocker and David Tipling is almost too wonderful a book to give away.

John Burnside, Scotsman

Birds and People by Mark Cocker and David Tipling is almost too wonderful a book to give away.

John Burnside, Scotsman

Mark Cocker’s Birds and People, is 535 pages of text and David Tipling’s luminous photographs: a true magnum opus, revealing the whole ghastly story of man’s long exploitation of our feathered friends.

John Lister-Kaye, Scotsman

A vast, ambitious and surprisingly personal overview of what birds mean to human beings... Birds and People is a dense, weighty delight, to be dipped into again and again as curiosity commands. Written with grace, conscientious stewardship and unfettered love, the book is a transformative look at the feathered dinosaurs that, despite all we have done to them, still grace our fields, forests and skies. Birds and People is an encyclopedia with a heart.

Julie Zickefoose, Wall Street Journal

Well laid out and designed and fluidly written, the book seems the best yet on its complex subject.

Henry T. Armistead, Science

Well laid out and designed and fluidly written, the book seems the best yet on its complex subject.

Henry T. Armistead, Science

The intricate research of Mark Cocker and the award-winning photography of David Tipling make this incredible feat of research one of the year’s finest examples of outdoor literature. Humanity’s bond with these feathered beasts is explored with such depth that it boggles the mind as to how the author pulled this overwhelming project together with such success.

James Reader, The Great Outdoors Magazine

The bird book I never knew I needed until I had it. Far from a reference book, it is full of stories – mythology, folklore, personal tales – and that is what makes it so beguiling.

Diane Setterfield, Big Issue

Authoritative yet readable… The definitive book on the subject.

Mark Whitley, Countryman

Authoritative yet readable… The definitive book on the subject.

Mark Whitley, Countryman

Stunning.

Gill Lewis, Guardian

A sumptuous book full of beautiful photos… It gives you hope that birds will be conserved.

Caroline Rees, Daily Express