By host Tom Ashbrook:

It’s a strange homage paid to the turkey on millions of American tables tomorrow. The great bird will be praised, stuffed, and eaten. But the universe of human interaction with the feathered world — with birds — is a vast one, deeply rooted in myth and fable, literature and worship.

For hundreds of thousands of years, earth-bound homo-sapiens have stared at the bird, and made it the symbol of freedom and of the spirit. From Aeschylus and Ovid and the Aztecs, to Melville and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, birds have been made omen and allegory, companion and prey — keys, somehow, to the human soul.

Hear a conversation with novelist and birder Graeme Gibson on the long and intimate relationship, in life and literature, between humans and birds.

Guests:

Graeme Gibson, Chairman of the Pelee Island Bird Observatory, novelist, and author of the new book “The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany.”