Homing
- Author Jon Day
- Narrator Matt Addis
- Publisher John Murray Press
- Run Time 8 hours and 8 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fishing, angling, Memoirs, Nature and the natural world: general interest.
Titles Purchased
- 1-5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- Over 20
Price p/Title
- £7.99
- £6.99
- £5.99
- £4.99
- £3.99
Listen to a sample
What to expect
A feral history of home, and our relationship with that most unloved bird.
As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it means to feel at home.
Returning to his childhood obsession with the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed.
Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin.
A book about the overlooked beauty of this species, and about what it means to dwell, Homing delves into the curious world of pigeon fancying, explores the scientific mysteries of animal homing, and traces the cultural, political and philosophical meanings of home. It is a book about the making of home and making for home: a book about why we return.
(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Critics Review
-
Precise and poignant
Spectator -
I love Jon Day’s writing and his birds. A marvellous, soaring account
Olivia Laing -
A compelling blend of personal memoir, nature writing and popular science, Day’s book considers the humble pigeon, probably our oldest companion species.
Mail on Sunday -
Homing did something I thought would be impossible – made me fall in love with the humble, familiar feral pigeon. It is both a repository of fascinating stories and memorable characters, and a deeply felt personal enquiry into the nature of ‘home’. Every page of this beautifully written book brought me pleasure
Charlotte Higgins -
‘A terrific book which explores the sport inside out, as well as our own human concept of what home is’
Daily Telegraph -
In this lucid and beguiling book, Jon Day has written marvellously interwoven tale of our two species
Jonathan Raban
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