Rating: 
Summary: The most exciting book I've read this year.
Review: No, I'm not being sarcastic. I mean it. Big Year is full of laughs, twists and yes, some touching moments. I love bird watching and road trips but the guys in Big Year are hard core competitors who operate on an entirely different plain than the novices.
The book is so well written that you can almost see yourself sitting in the backseat of Sandy Komito's Skuamobile as he prowls down the highway looking for birds. In fact, it's so vivid that Big Year would actually make a darn good movie. While reading it I kept imagining James Cagney or Oscar Levant as Komito, Gregory Peck or Walter Pigeon as Al Levantin and a very young Jimmy Stewart as Greg Miller, the wonderful optimist who decides to do a Big Year on the cheap.
The things these guys encounter while pursuing their passion such as mountain lions, cowboys with potbellied pigs, the horrors of economy flight, crocodiles, frozen graves, and icy cold outhouses are the stuff of adventure novels with a good sized dollop of comedy thrown in.
The Big year is fascinating, fun, and daydream inducing. I and most of the readers of the book will probably never get closer to a Big Year than vicariously through the book but after reading it I have started thinking that maybe, just maybe I could survive a one county Big Day. I loved the book and even my non nature loving friends found themselves laughing out loud when I read sections of it to them.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm not a birder...
Review: ...but I loved this book! I am fascinated by people who are exceptional at anything, and the three men profiled in this book are talented in the extreme. That they were also willing to take a whole year to be away from their families, spend thousands of dollars traveling thousands of miles, eat terrible food, endure horrible weather and make themselves ill makes "The Big Year" even more interesting. Others may find them crazy, but I admire them all. The amount of research that the author put into this book really shows, and his concise writing style kept my attention from beginning to end, even though the names of the birds meant little to me. A fun read.
Rating:
Summary: Are you doing a Big Year this year ?
Review: Another good book on the subject of doing a Big Year in birding.There have been others written before.The classic for North America is "Wild America" by Roger T. Peterson and James Fisher written in 1955 when their goal was to see 600 birds in one year.There have been others since, which pushed the bar to the 700 level.One of the best in my estimation was Kenn Kaufman's "Kingbird Highway" personal story of getting 671 birds in 1972.He did this at 18 without a car,or even a driving license,all for under 1000 dollars,including half of which went for plane flights to Alaska.Now there's a challenge to beat!
This new book now has birders competing in the 700's.Where is the limit,who knows.You'll have to read the book to find out which of the three won.I will tell you this much,715 was not enough.
While an excellent book;I believe there is a screaming ommission.There should have been a checklist showing which birds each one got as well as those missed.This would have taken only a few pages and would have set the standard for future books of this type.The book would also have benefited from the inclusion of some photos of several of the people involved.
There was an excellent article about this book in the 19 January 2004 edition of Sports Ilustrated.It included several photos and several of my non-birding friends told me they really enjoyed it.
A great read for all birders as well as anyone who enjoys competition and perseverance.
Rating:
Summary: The Big Year is a quick fun read.
Review: As an expeienced birder I often find books about the subject less than entertaining. Not the case with The Big Year. I read it in one sitting and enjoyed every page. I know one of the characters, Greg Miller, and ran into another, Sandy Komito during one of his numerous chases for rarities 1998, the year the book is based upon. So perhaps my enthusiasm is a little overblown, but not by much. Mark Obmasik does an excellent job of capturing the obsession that sometimes develops among birders. His style is entertaining and very readable. I especially enjoyed the wild helicopter chase! Birding is an exciting past time. Obmasik captures that excitement. A big year in birding is like an Ironman length triathlon. Sometimes you just have to gut it out, but in the end it is a memorable experience no matter who wins. Obmasik tells the story in a way that helps you to understand what a big year is like for the participant. Greg Miller's story is especially compelling. He has the smallest budget, the least free time,and is out of shape physically and emotionally. Yet he still manages the astounding feat of seeing over 700 species in North America in a single year. A fun read for birders and non birders too.
Rating:
Summary: Great look at serious birding
Review: Being a novice birder, I was very interested to read about what it takes to complete a Big Year, a calendar year of birding in which the participants try to see more species than anyone else. Apparently it takes an obsessive personality, a lot of money, and an unrelenting competitive spirit. Mark Obmascik captures all of this in his book which features the top 3 birders in the 1998 competition. The birders are as different as they are interesting. Sandy Komito is a former Big Year winner, Al Levantin is a retired CEO who lives in Aspen, and Greg Miller is a computer programmer who attempts to work full-time while doing a Big Year in his "spare time". Author Obmascik follows them all over North America, from the mosquitos of the Florida Everglades to the blinding snow storms of the remote island of Attu, and chronicles their successes, struggles, and failures. Adverse weather conditions, only an advantage to birders, allow these three men to tally huge numbers of birds. The book contains a lot of interesting birding history, insider practices, and a lot of laughs which make this a delightful read.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Tale
Review: I agree with what Kenn Kaufman and David Sibley said on the cover about this book. It's a "gripping page-turner" and it has been "the source of many daydreams". I love to go birding, but I loved this book because of the people. The three guys in this book cracked me up. They would have nothing in common except for their unbelievable addiction to finding another bird for their list. I stayed up all night just to see who won! The writing was so good I kept chuckling out loud. After the chapter on migration, I'll never think of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird the same way again.
Rating: 
Summary: Extreme Birdwatching! Yuck!
Review: I have always harbored a fantasy where I retire with lots of money (yeah, right) and spend my remaining years traveling around the country looking for birds I have never seen. Forget that I am not a birder, have never been able to memorize the tiniest fact about species, and am bad at identifying bird calls: The truth is I just love birds, and love to watch them on my backyard feeders.
Well, any fantasy I may have harbored was killed forever with this strange and off-putting story of competitive birders striving to outdo each other in sightings in one Big Year (not my term or even the author's; a legitimate competitive birding term). Yes, the writing is sprightly, humorous, well done and competent--the author is a birder himself, although not in the same league as the three gentlemen he describes who take off at the beginning of 1998 to break the Big Year record.
It seems to me that the more grueling the trek to spot a rare bird, the more humorous and tall-tale-like the stories became, the more put off I was. Nowhere in the book did I sense any joy of seeing a bird for its own sake, but rather for quickly spotting it, jotting it down in one's "life list" or Big Year list, and moving on. ALL the birders in the book appeared to me to care more about the competition and the listing of the birds than the birds themselves. In fact, in one horrifying story, an anonymous person actually KILLS a bird in order to make an identification. Although this is not condoned, it happens...and it's disgusting.
I disliked the book so much for its subject matter, I would have given it one star, but the writing is great, and this world of competitive bird watching is certainly described well, whether I liked it or not. Apparently, due to el nino and a strange combination of weather factors, 1998 was the biggest birding year of all time vis a vis The Big Year counts. Good. I hope I never have to read about it again!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic writing
Review: I heard the author of this book, Mark Obmascik, on National Public Radio, and found him so engaging, that I then went on line to find out about "The Big Year". It is no surprise to me that Outside Magazine and National Geographic Magazine gave the book great reviews. This was a terrific read. I am not a birder, but I may now become one. "The Big Year" is suspenseful, and fascinating...a real joy.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: I loved this book, and finished it in 2 days. Mark Obmascik has done an exceptional job capturing the excitement (and obsession) of birding. This book has lots of laughs (whether you're a birder or not) and brilliantly weaves the quests, and obsessions, of three men in their race for The Big Year.
Rating:
Summary: Birders in Sports Illustrated??
Review: I read the excerpt of this book in my son's Sports Illustrated (January 19, 2004 issue) and immediately ordered a copy The Big Year. Who would have thought that three bird watchers offer the story for an article in Sports Illustrated. But this is a story of an "extreme" sport. Bird watching at the level described in The Big Year is competitive, compulsive, and compelling. When I received the book last weekend I could not put it down until I found out who won the competition and how the year ended for the three competitors. The writing is outstanding and the picture drawn of the three competitors leaves you thinking you know them. The Big Year is a great read.
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