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Review Once Around The Block, A Birder’s Year in the West Village

By Keith Michael

Available from keithmichaelnyc.comkeithmichaelnyc.com

Reviewed by Barbara Chacour

Keith Michael has been writing for WestView News for several years, chronicling bird sightings in the West Village as he walks his corgi, Millie. His column is a sea of tranquility amidst theISSUES! we are dealing with all around us. He includes great photos of his findings (hawk eating rat above the Hudson River Park last month) and interesting information about the many species he identifies in this area (83 in total).

If you love birds and/or this neighborhood, you should love this book. His writing is as wryly humorous as we have come to expect and the color photography is gorgeous. Our river waterfront (“the ever humbling Hudson River”) is prominently featured as are architectural details of old and new buildings, trees and flowers. In a recent interview with Michael Minichiello, Keith laments the diminishing charm of the area as high rises are built. However, his stunning photos of reflections in the glass towers give a finer perspective on modernization. In fact, his enthusiastic responses to his daily observations give a positive outlook on life in general.

Keith is a self-taught birder, photographer, and writer. His profession is dance—he choreographs for the New York Theater Ballet Company. Imagine my surprise when I realized that he is the same Keith Michael who choreographed the Nutcracker ballet I enjoyed last December. Alistair Macaulay writing in The New York Times called it a “chamber version that succeeds often remarkably”, citing its “sweetness, fun and intimacy.”

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