Mark your calendars, San Antonio butterfly friends. Butterfly evangelist and author Robert Michael Pyle will read from his new book, Mariposa Road, the First Butterfly Big Year at 5 PM Wednesday, November 10 at the Twig Bookstore at the Pearl in San Antonio.
Pyle has written 14 books, including the charming Chasing Monarchs, Where Bigfoot Walks, and Wintergreen, which won the John Burroughs Medal. He’s a Yale-trained ecologist and Guggenheim fellow, and lives and writes full-time in southwestern Washington state.
Mariposa Road documents a roadtrip he took in a 1982 Honda Civic which he affectionately calls Powdermilk (it has with 345,000 miles on it). His primary companion was a trusty cottonwood-limbed butterfly net named Marsha. Pyle set out to have the “first butterfly big year,” a reference to the birding world whereby birders set out to see as many species as possible in one year. Pyle is the first to aim for a “big year” in the relatively new hobby of butterflying. Reviewers have been mum on how many of the 800 species in the U.S. he witnessed, encouraging us to read the book to find out.
One reviewer labeled Mariposa Road “at turns whimsical, witty, informative, and inspirational… an extraordinary journey of discovery that leads the reader ever farther into butterfly country and deeper into the heart of the naturalist.” Some readers complained of its 500-page length, yet the book is scoring five stars on Amazon.
Can’t wait to read this apparent must-have for the butterfly bookshelf. See you there.
Wednesday, November 10, 5 PM
Robert Michael Pyle, Author of Mariposa Road
The Twig Bookstore, 200 E Grayson, The Pearl
San Antonio, TX 78215
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