From Publishers Weekly
In one of the wackiest competitions around, every year hundreds of obsessed bird watchers participate in a contest known as the North American Big Year. Hoping to be the one to spot the most species during the course of the year, each birder spends 365 days racing around the continental U.S. and Canada compiling lists of birds, all for the glory of being recognized by the American Birding Association as the Big Year birding champion of North America. In this entertaining book, Obmascik, a journalist with the Denver Post, tells the stories of the three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: a wisecracking industrial roofing contractor from New Jersey who aims to break his previous record and win for a second time; a suave corporate chief executive from Colorado; and a 225-pound nuclear power plant software engineer from Maryland. Obmascik bases his story on post-competition interviews but writes so well that it sounds as if he had been there every step of the way. In a freewheeling style that moves around as fast as his subjects, the author follows each of the three birding fanatics as they travel thousands of miles in search of such hard-to-find species as the crested myna, the pink-footed goose and the fork-tailed flycatcher, spending thousands of dollars and braving rain, sleet, snowstorms, swamps, deserts, mosquitoes and garbage dumps in their attempts to outdo each other. By not revealing the outcome until the end of the book, Obmascik keeps the reader guessing in this fun account of a whirlwind pursuit of birding fame. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
In his introduction, newspaperman Mark Obmascik explains how his obsession with birding snuck up on him, starting with a chance phone call about a birding expert. In the same way, his account of The Big Year, the competition of a lifetime for birders, grows on listeners. The 1998 competition was a race between three rivals that led to a new record-745 different species found and identified by the winner. Listeners learn both about the sport and the people who pursue it, even following a budding romance. Oliver Wyman ably conveys Obmascik's love of the sport, making its participants come alive with his storytelling and expressing moments of humor and drama without resorting to caricature. J.A.S. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
There is a well-known competition among birders called the Big Year, in which one abandons one's regular life for one whole year in order to see more species of birds in a geographic area than one's competitors. Environmental journalist Obmascik follows the 1998 Big Year's three main competitors--a New Jersey roofing contractor, a corporate executive, and a software engineer--as they crisscross the country in search of birds. Whether looking for flamingos in the Everglades, great grey owls in the frozen bogs near Duluth, or Asian rarities on the Aleutian island of Attu, these obsessed birders not only faced seasickness, insects, altitude sickness, and going into debt, they also faced each other. Their drive to win propelled all three past the rarified count of 700 species seen, and the winner saw an extraordinary 745 species--a number that will probably never be equaled. With a blend of humor and awe, Obmascik takes the reader into the heart of competitive birding, and in the process turns everyone into birders. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Book News, Inc.
The Big Year is an annual contest in which birders travel all across North America competing to identify as many different species as possible over the course of a 365-day period. Journalist Obmascik profiles three of the participants in the 1998 Big Year, one of whom achieved the unprecedented record of identifying 745 different species, and describes their adventures in traveling the continent looking for rare species. Obmascik frequently incorporates the natural history of the discussed birds into his narrative, also discussing some of the wider societal issues surrounding birds and their environments.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Outside Magazine, February 2004
Records the quirks that make any obsessive-subculture book worth reading ... feathered version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Stefan Fatsis, author of WORD FREAK: HEARBREAK, TRIUMPH, GENIUS, and OBSESSION IN THE WORLD OF COMPETITIVE SCRABBLE PLAYERS
"The doggedness of an investigastive reporter...and the compassion of a fellow-traveling obsessive [in] this alluring quest for avian supremacy."

David Allen Sibley, author of THE SIBLEY GUIDE TO BIRDS
"The best and the worst of birding in one grueling yearlong contest...[of] rare passion.

Jeff Corwin, wildlife biologist, executive producer and host of Animal Planet's The Jeff Corwin Experience.
"A rollicking, feather-ruffler of a read, this uproarious adventure...will have you cawing with laughter."

Kenn Kaufman, author of KAUFMAN FOCUS GUIDES: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA
"THE BIG YEAR will blow you away. A vivid, well-crafted epic."

T.R. Reid, WASHINGTON POST
"Charming, engrossing, and educational even for people who can't tell a mudhen from a magpie."

Review
T. R. Reid Washington Post's Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief, regular commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and author of Confucius Lives Next Door Here's a rare species: a book on birdwatching that turns out to be charming, engrossing, and educational even for people who can't tell a mudhen from a magpie. It was so much fun, I didn't want the big year to end. When it did, there was only one thing to say: "Where'd I put those binoculars?"

Book Description
Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year -- a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, "extreme" 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would be a whirlwind, a winner-takes-nothing battle for a new North American birding record. In frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities that can make or break their lead, the birders race each other from Del Rio, Texas, in search of the rufous-capped warbler, to Gibsons, British Columbia, on a quest for Xantus's hummingbird, to Cape May, New Jersey, seeking the offshore great skua. Bouncing from coast to coast on their potholed road to glory, they brave broiling deserts, roiling oceans, bug-infested swamps, a charge by a disgruntled mountain lion, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man. The unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a new record -- one so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested...finding and identifying an extraordinary 745 different species by official year-end count. Prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a rollicking, dazzling narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to the finish to claim the title in the greatest -- or maybe the worst -- birding contest of all time. With an engaging, unflappably wry humor, Obmascik memorializes their wild and crazy exploits and, along the way, interweaves an entertaining smattering of science about birds and their own strange behavior with a brief history of other bird-men and -women; turns out even Audubon pushed himself beyond the brink when he was chasing and painting the birds of America. A captivating tour of human and avian nature, passion and paranoia, honor and deceit, fear and loathing, The Big Year shows the lengths to which people will go to pursue their dreams, to conquer and categorize -- no matter how low the stakes. This is a lark of a read for anyone with birds on the brain -- or not.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
For those unfamiliar with the rituals of birding, a "Big Year" is a yearlong quest by individual birdwatchers to log official sightings of as many breeds as possible. Make no mistake -- this is no leisurely walk through the local woods. Birders engaged in a Big Year are highly competitive and go to enormous lengths to sight their birds, including daring acts of physical endurance, large financial outlays, and even psychological combat.

In Obmascik's hilarious recounting, the Big Year is 1998, and the birds are chased by three competitors: Sandy Komito is a ruthless, wisecracking roofing contractor who grew up on the mean streets of New Jersey; Al Levantin is a gracious and successful businessman with a mansion in Aspen; and Greg Miller is a nearly broke junk-food addict who works as a software administrator for a nuclear power plant. They are three men quite unlikely to ever cross paths, except for a consuming passion: birds.

As the three men chase ptarmigans, hummingbirds, owls, and boobies, they travel by every means possible -- from airplane and taxi to helicopter, bicycle, and boat -- canoeing through gator-infested swamps and sleeping in the frozen terrain of the Aleutian Islands. Only one man can win this race, but birders and nonbirders alike will find themselves cheering the competitors along in this quirky contest in which honesty and honor play as important a role as winning. (Winter/Spring 2004 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year -- a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, "extreme" 365-day marathon of birdwatching.

For three men in particular, 1998 would be a whirlwind, a winner-takes-nothing battle for a new North American birding record. In frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities that can make or break their lead, the birders race each other from Del Rio, Texas, in search of the rufous-capped warbler, to Gibsons, British Columbia, on a quest for Xantus's hummingbird, to Cape May, New Jersey, seeking the offshore great skua. Bouncing from coast to coast on their potholed road to glory, they brave broiling deserts, roiling oceans, bug-infested swamps, a charge by a disgruntled mountain lion, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man.

The unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a new record -- one so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested ... finding and identifying an extraordinary 745 different species by official year-end count.

Prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a rollicking, dazzling narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to the finish to claim the title in the greatest -- or maybe the worst -- birding contest of all time. With an engaging, unflappably wry humor, Obmascik memorializes their wild and crazy exploits and, along the way, interweaves an entertaining smattering of science about birds and their own strange behavior with a brief history of other bird-men and -women; turns out even Audubon pushed himself beyond the brink when he was chasing and painting the birds of America.

A captivating tour of human and avian nature, passion and paranoia, honor and deceit, fear and loathing, The Big Year shows the lengths to which people will go to pursue their dreams, to conquer and categorize -- no matter how low the stakes. This is a lark of a read for anyone with birds on the brain -- or not.

SYNOPSIS

The Big Year is an annual contest in which birders travel all across North America competing to identify as many different species as possible over the course of a 365-day period. Journalist Obmascik profiles three of the participants in the 1998 Big Year, one of whom achieved the unprecedented record of identifying 745 different species, and describes their adventures in traveling the continent looking for rare species. Obmascik frequently incorporates the natural history of the discussed birds into his narrative, also discussing some of the wider societal issues surrounding birds and their environments. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In one of the wackiest competitions around, every year hundreds of obsessed bird watchers participate in a contest known as the North American Big Year. Hoping to be the one to spot the most species during the course of the year, each birder spends 365 days racing around the continental U.S. and Canada compiling lists of birds, all for the glory of being recognized by the American Birding Association as the Big Year birding champion of North America. In this entertaining book, Obmascik, a journalist with the Denver Post, tells the stories of the three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: a wisecracking industrial roofing contractor from New Jersey who aims to break his previous record and win for a second time; a suave corporate chief executive from Colorado; and a 225-pound nuclear power plant software engineer from Maryland. Obmascik bases his story on post-competition interviews but writes so well that it sounds as if he had been there every step of the way. In a freewheeling style that moves around as fast as his subjects, the author follows each of the three birding fanatics as they travel thousands of miles in search of such hard-to-find species as the crested myna, the pink-footed goose and the fork-tailed flycatcher, spending thousands of dollars and braving rain, sleet, snowstorms, swamps, deserts, mosquitoes and garbage dumps in their attempts to outdo each other. By not revealing the outcome until the end of the book, Obmascik keeps the reader guessing in this fun account of a whirlwind pursuit of birding fame. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews