... a sincere and searing tale of loss, addictive despair, the redemptive power of love, the natural world and a shit-dropping, feather-moulting talking magpie.

... engrossing.

... a magical book of exhilarating complexity, the story of blood, bird shit, tears and hope.

In folklore, magpies are said to bring bad luck, but that certainly wasn’t the case for Charlie Gilmour. An abandoned baby bird helped this young British author finally exorcise the long shadow cast by his biological father, who abandoned him as an infant. Gilmour’s remarkable memoir, Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie, explains in lively, compelling detail how caring for this bird prepared him to become a father himself. With razor-sharp wit and storytelling, Gilmour interweaves the story of this bird, whom he and his partner named Benzene, with that of his past.

... moving, though often spiky.

Interwoven with [Gilmour's] narrative of pain and sadness is his relationship with a magpie that he and his ever patient fiancee rescued and nursed to health.

Journalist Gilmour debuts with a moving chronicle of his transition from being 'a serial shirker of responsibility' to a devoted family man.