Book of Flaco

David Gessner is the author of thirteen books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including the New York Times bestselling All the Wild That Remains. Gessner is a professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he also founded the literary magazine Ecotone. His own magazine publications include pieces in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Orion, and many other magazines. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show, The Call of the Wild.

• An Afterword Before1. The Escape2. Followers3. Evolution4. Visitation5. A Walk in the Park6. The Virtual Bird7. The Passion of Anke8. West Side Story9. Legacy: Flaco Lives!Epilogue: Beyond Flaco

"For Flaco fans, birdwatchers and those interested in the threats facing our environment, The Book of Flaco promises to be a hoot."—PEOPLE"Gessner offers a panoramic overview of the bird’s impact on the environment, the law, and everyday New Yorkers, as well as providing shrewd insight into why Flaco attracted so many fans, suggesting that the owl’s story tapped into the desire 'in each of us... to break out of the lives we find ourselves trapped in.' Flaco’s admirers will flock to this."—Publishers Weekly"Issuing a subtle challenge to reappraise human effects on wildlife, The Book of Flaco is a touching tribute to a bird mourned worldwide."—Foreword Reviews"Gessner talked to the people who knew and loved Flaco best, and as he tells the owl’s story, we also get the story of New York’s birders and the fleeting light of cyber fame."—Booklist"For one glorious year, it was Flaco's world, and we were just living in it. The world watched as a scrappy newcomer made New York his home, and we mourned his death even as we knew his freedom couldn't last. Fortunately, David Gessner came along to chronicle these events as they happened, and to conduct a post-mortem, as it were, on Flaco's flight to freedom, his rise to fame, and his inevitable downfall. The result is a wonderfully entertaining tribute to Flaco and everything he taught us about what owls are capable of, even in the urban chaos of Manhattan.”—Amy Stewart, author of The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession and The Drunken Botanist“Gessner writes beautifully, with heart and honesty. This book is about an owl, sure, but more than that, it's about ourselves: about what we in our distracted, self-centric lives have lost and occasionally, in the unexpected presence of a wild creature, are lucky enough to regain. Like Flaco himself, this book is an inspiration, an invitation to step outside ourselves, to leave the cage, as it were, and connect to something pure and precious. Nature writing can have no worthier purpose.”—Mary Roach, author of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law“The Book of Flaco is a charming, passionate ode to the world's most charismatic owl—and the latent wildness that we all harbor. Few birds touched as many human lives as this escaped Eurasian eagle-owl, and few writers have memorialized an animal as gracefully as David Gessner.”—Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager