Field Guides
How to differentiate between birding field guides? There is the Peterson Guide and Sibley's. The National Geographic Field Guide is the one recommended by the instructor of the Great Courses Birding class, while Audubon is one of the oldest (though I just read that Peterson's is older still). If you really want the oldest, you will have to track down a copy of Birds Through an Opera-Glass, written by Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey (1863 –1948), who was an American ornithologist and nature writer who organized early Audubon Society chapters and was an early activist for bird protection.
In the end, it seems, it really comes down to personal preference.
While my husband gravitated immediately toward the beautiful illustrations of the Sibley, with their focus on plumage; I liked the simplicity and feel of the Kaufman Guide, which was designed for beginners. I also love Alvarez's Guide to California Birds. This latter one is the only field guide I actually use. Both Alvarez and the Kaufman have better notes on bird calls and songs too.
My new favorite is Hansen's Field Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada: with its beautiful descriptions and fabulous pictures!
I also regularly consult the funny Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, by Matt Kracht.
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Art/Culture
The Book of the Bird: Birds in Art Birds in Art
Hyland, Angus, Laurence King Publishing
The Bird in Art
Bugler, Caroline, Merrell
An Unlikely Search for Meaning in the World's Most Magnificent Bird An Unlikely Search for Meaning in the World's Most Magnificent Bird
Flynn, Sean, Simon & Schuster
Birds and People
Mark Cocker, David Tipling
Birds: Myth, Lore and Legend
Rachel Warren Chadd, Marianne Taylor
Ciao, Carpaccio!: An Infatuation
by Jan Morris
Carpaccio: Major Pictorial Cycles
by Stefania Mason
Hieronymus Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights
by Hans Belting
As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Birds & Books
by Alex Preston, Neil Gower
"Carpaccio's 'Hunting on the Lagoon': A New Perspective"
Yvonne Szafran
"A Late Fifteenth Century Venetian Painting of a Bird Hunt"
George Goldner
"Divine Judgment in Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights"
Author(s): Peter Glum
Source: The Art Bulletin
Memoirs/Journalism
Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder: A Memoir
by Julia Zarankin
Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation
by Kyo Maclear
How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding
by Ted Floyd
Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds
Gentile, Olivia
Kingbird Highway
Kenn Kaufman
Big Year, Biggest States
Lynn Barber
A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
Meiburg, Jonathan
The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human
Strycker, Noah
Pasta for Nightingales: A 17th-Century Handbook of Bird-Care and Folklore A 17th-Century Handbook of Bird-Care and Folklore
Olina, Giovanni Pietro, dal Pozzo, Cassiano, Clayton, Kate, Macdonald, Helen,
The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany An Avian Miscellany
Gibson, Graeme, Atwood, Margaret
The Charm of Birds
Grey, Sir Edward,
Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds
Weidensaul, Scott
A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
by Scott Weidensau
Why Birds Sing: A Journey Into the Mystery of Bird Song by David Rothenberg (2005-04-12)
Rothenberg, David
Into the Heart of Borneo
by Redmond O'Hanlon