Homing, Jon Day
Homing, Jon Day
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
Club: $13.99

Homing
On Pigeons, Dwellings and Why We Return

Author: Jon Day

Narrator: Matt Addis

Unabridged: 8 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: John Murray

Published: 06/13/2019


Synopsis

'[Day has] succeeded in making that most familiar of birds seem mysterious, almost magical, and illuminated, brilliantly, the urge towards home' Malachy Tallack

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

About Jon Day

Jon Day is a writer, critic and academic. He is the author of Cyclogeography (Notting Hill Editions, 2015) and Homing (John Murray, 2019), which was a book of the year in the Guardian, The Spectator, Daily Telegraph and Observer, and was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, and his essays and reviews have also appeared in the Financial Times, New York Review of Books, Bookforum, n+1, Guardian, The Spectator and many others. He teaches English and creative writing at King's College London.


Reviews

Homing explores the affinity many people have with this unique breed of bird and what they can effectively tell us about our philosophical yearning to belong and having a place to call our own to return to in order to recharge. It is so much more profound than just a book on birds, and one thing is......more

Very interesting, particularly given the subject matter. I shall enjoy expounding various pigeon anecdotes to, no doubt, bemused friends. Need to go, off to become a pigeon fancier.........more


Quotes

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

A meditation that swoops agilely over topics from tyranny of technology to the paradoxes of parenting and the rewards of simply staying put. . . . A joyful, richly rewarding book Mail on Sunday

Big-hearted and quietly gripping The Guardian

[A] Vivid evocation of a remarkable species and a rich working-class tradition...a charming defence of a much-maligned bird Daily Mail

Day's stories from the history of human-pigeon relations are well chosen and well told ... there's a great deal to like in the simple imagery of a young family and their pigeons growing up together in an east London home Literary Review