It’s funny when you stumble across a book that is just right for your frame of mind. This book, in all its pastoral ramble-y ways, was that quiet I did not know I needed, in a world that is strangely quiet in ways (less traffic) but crazily loud in so many other ways (ALL THE NEWS).

This is a book about a woman and her birds, and I was startled to learn at the end of the book that Len was a real person, a woman who did live in Sussex, and who observed and wrote about the birds who lived in her garden, although her work wasn’t deemed scientific enough and are now out of print.

It’s strangely charming and yet profoundly sad, this woman’s life among her birds, especially in contrast to her younger self as a musician in London. An explanation for her reclusiveness isn’t exactly stated (at least not that I recall) but maybe the reader is meant to reflect on that and wonder

Author Eva Meijer is Dutch and has also written a non-fiction book, When Animals Speak.