With a Bird: A Reader on Avian Kinship

In this imaginative collection, speculative fiction, art, social science, and ornithology take flight together to propose a cross-species dialogue between humans and birds.

Following the tremendous success of A Tree, With a Bird is the second of a five-year, five-volume series by Onomatopee that aims to create "a rich encounter between folklore and critical research." As a reader exploring avian kinship, With a Bird delves into the profound ways birds inspire human understanding of life, blending scientific inquiry with spiritual reflection. The book combines visual arts, natural history, sociology, literature, and other diverse fields to explore how birds challenge and transcend various boundaries—whether between human and non-human life, dream and reality, life and death, science and folklore, or the realms of land, water, and sky. In this exquisite, canary-yellow paperback, each chapter focuses on the symbolic roles birds play in human life, from death, dreams, and freedom to divination.

In addition to new works and essays, With a Bird reprints literary texts by various authors on avian companions, including: Daisy Hildyard, The Second Body (2017); John Berger, The White Bird (1985); Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Whiteness of Birds (2022); Maria Popova, The New York Times (2024); Marianne Elisabeth Lien, Ducks into Houses (2018); and Anna Tsing, The Sociality of Birds (2022).