The Sound of Feathers
Attentive Living in a World Beyond Ourselves
Emphasizing the importance of quiet observations of the natural world, Kathryn Gillespie’s probing, meditative nature book The Sound of Feathers is about human encounters with animals.
The thoughtful essays address the ethics of humanity’s “mundane and taken-for-granted” relationships with animals, including running animals over on roadways and displacing animals to build homes. Personal anecdotes, as of orca watching on the Puget Sound, prompt engaging discussions of human incursions into wild habitats for entertainment or “hollow” connections. A family trip to a feed store to buy baby chicks for a backyard chicken coop leads to deliberations on the “insidious” violence of raising animals for food, and the adoption of a shy beagle who had never “seen grass or the sky” opens a disturbing rumination on biomedical research. Elsewhere, the extermination of infesting rats as requested by an urban neighbor provokes Gillespie’s troubled contemplation of her own complicity in prioritizing some lives over others.
Gillespie considers social, political, and economic structures such as a consumerism and the capitalistic drive for perpetual growth that are indicted for driving harmful behaviors and promoting environmental and climate crises. The book argues that the antidote to such destruction is paying attention and living closer to the earth: “I walk quietly down the sidewalk, listening carefully for the sound of feathers … This attentiveness necessitates slowing down—not only in pace but also in thought, clearing space in the mind for wonder.”
With a finely attenuated conscience, the essays question the values that separate humans from nature and urges reconnections. While it often criticizes human behaviors, its tone remains gentle, discerning, and encouraging—focused on solutions, not judgments.
The Sound of Feathers is a profound essay collection about the relationships between humans and animals and the need to imagine new possibilities.
Reviewed by
Kristen Rabe
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
