The Big Year, by Mark Obasmick, is my favorite book of those I’ve read so far this year. It was wonderful. I had no idea when I picked it up that it was going to be so rich, make me laugh so much, or push all kinds of achievement-anxiety buttons. What writing!

Here’s how much I got hooked on a journalistic account of three driven men chasing rare birds around North America in 1998: I didn’t just miss my stop on the Metro on my way to the bookshop, I got off the train at the wrong stop, transferred to another line on autopilot, and rode it all the way to my usual Tuesday stop, and didn’t realize I had gone to completely the wrong place until I looked at my watch at that stop and said ‘oh no, I’ve missed my bus! Wait…there’s no bus here…this is the wrong stop…I am in the wrong state…how did I get here?…this is not my beautiful wife….’ That’s how much I had to know how the year ended. Not even who won, but what happened: which birds did they finally get to see? Which mountains did they scale, which birds eluded them until the very end? Did they help each other? Did they not? Did one get to wipe that smug smugness off the face of the other?

I knew a few things about myself before picking up this book. Like, I get anxious when engaging publicly in things I’m not good at. Or, that I enjoy the thrill of seeing a new bird for the first time, and am comforted by seeing a favorite bird again. I had no idea, though, that those things would dovetail so neatly while reading this book. Midway through, I had to put the book down to be reassured that (1) I’m not ‘behind’ because I am 32 and only have a lifelist of 100 birds long, (2) I’m not a total failure because I can’t tell most shorebirds, warblers, or seabirds apart without agonizing over my Peterson’s, and (3) things are not going to fall apart if I don’t get on the internets right now and start planning trips to all of the places in the U.S. where you can see a bunch of birds at once that everyone knows about except me. That’s how well Obasmick captures the driven competitiveness — as well as the smug self-assuredness — of the kooky people and kooky challenge they’re undertaking.

Alongside the inferiority-complex-inducing narrative of the bird chasing and identifying — which was laced with so many resultant ludicrous situations and happenings that I nearly fell off my chair laughing at several key points — is a similarly engaging, but less anxiety-producing, narrative of the history of bird watching in the U.S. This side of the book is the balm, the soothing reminder that bird watching is an activity peopled by those who love birds and get a thrill out of seeing them and finding them, of all levels of skill or experience. Obasmick places these three men in their historical context, and in so doing creates a craving to read the other key narratives of bird chasing and Big Years: Kingbird Highway and Wild America.

Mostly, the book made me want to read less and bird more. Thankfully, spring is on its way.