And another half star. Great book with lovely pictures but a bit of a dry read so maybe better to dip into rather than read cover to cover as I did (albeit slowly). Could use more imagination with the structure of the book - the content was very interesting. ( )

A fascinating book about corvids (crows and ravens), their behaviors and social nature, as well as their relationship and interactions with humans. The book seems a little repetitive and drawn out, but relatively easy to read. It seemed like the idea of co-evolution of corvids and humans is a little bit over-emphasized, but interesting nonetheless.

There's interesting information about crows, ravens, and their kin in here. But I'm having to read through a lot of uninteresting words to get to it. Unfortunately, it's not lively enough for a pop science book, but it's not focused enough for a hard science book. Too bad, because the premise is catchy.

(Also, the attributions are killing me. The citation number for further information is always on the final sentence of a paragraph, regardless of what information the endnote itself refers to. Very annoying to flip to the end of the book expecting an explanation of point C, only to get more detail on A.) ( )

In the Company of Crows and Ravens is a rather exhaustive and occasionally exhausting overview of corvids and (more so) an examination of humans and corvids entwined cultural influences. While the reader can scavenge the occasional shiny fact*, this book feels more like the flotsam and jetsam of a three-day long google search than a comprehensive introduction to corvids — at one point the author, John M. Marzluff, just resorts to listing all the bands he can think of that have the word "crow" in their name. Part of the muddle is that the book lacks a broader narrative direction. This is unfortunate as crow research (and by extension this book) brings up some contentious areas of biology (how speciation occurs in animals, the extent to which something can be said to be a language, at what levels natural selection appears to be exerting pressure, the extent to which learning animals that pass on knowledge can be said to have culture). I kept hoping that Marzluff would use his subject to give a broader sense of the state of the sciences themselves, as is done by many other popular science authors, perhaps even offering some of the current controversies in the field and the ideas of their respective defenders but, alas, the book never really rises above the details**. There are also some mechanical problems, such as quirky pet-words reused in quick succession, that make In the Company feel a little like a slapdash effort. That said, perhaps then my criticisms are less with the author than of his editor. As for the illustrations, they are very attractive and, admittedly, were what first drew me to the book. Alone, they make this a rather handsome addition to any bookshelf, even if you can never quite push through the full text.

* crows do not actually collect shiny objects

** a couple fascinating things about crows I learned:
i) magpies recognize themselves in the mirror and upon seeing a laser shone on their reflection will look down and start preening themselves
ii) some Seattle crows recognize the golden arches on a bag and will fly to it, rather than a plain bag containing identical food inside ( )

In the Company of Crows and Ravens is a rather exhaustive and occasionally exhausting overview of corvids and (more so) an examination of humans and corvids entwined cultural influences. While the reader can scavenge the occasional shiny fact*, this book feels more like the flotsam and jetsam of a three-day long google search than a comprehensive introduction to corvids — at one point the author, John M. Marzluff, just resorts to listing all the bands he can think of that have the word "crow" in their name. Part of the muddle is that the book lacks a broader narrative direction. This is unfortunate as crow research (and by extension this book) brings up some contentious areas of biology (how speciation occurs in animals, the extent to which something can be said to be a language, at what levels natural selection appears to be exerting pressure, the extent to which learning animals that pass on knowledge can be said to have culture). I kept hoping that Marzluff would use his subject to give a broader sense of the state of the sciences themselves, as is done by many other popular science authors, perhaps even offering some of the current controversies in the field and the ideas of their respective defenders but, alas, the book never really rises above the details**. There are also some mechanical problems, such as quirky pet-words reused in quick succession, that make In the Company feel a little like a slapdash effort. That said, perhaps then my criticisms are less with the author than of his editor. As for the illustrations, they are very attractive and, admittedly, were what first drew me to the book. Alone, they make this a rather handsome addition to any bookshelf, even if you can never quite push through the full text.

* crows do not actually collect shiny objects

** a couple fascinating things about crows I learned:
i) magpies recognize themselves in the mirror and upon seeing a laser shone on their reflection will look down and start preening themselves
ii) some Seattle crows recognize the golden arches on a bag and will fly to it, rather than a plain bag containing identical food inside ( )