The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

On the Same Page is a collaborative community reading event. Films, lectures and book discussions will take place throughout October. Bloomingdale, Itasca and Roselle Public Libraries offer unique programming based on themes in this year’s novel, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, by Margharet Renkl. Participants are encouraged to attend programs at any of the three libraries.

Copies of the book are available at the Library. Supply is limited.

About The Comfort of Crows

In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring—what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author—and from us. For, as Renkl writes, “radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world.” With fifty-two original color artworks by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world.

About Margaret Renkl

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year won the 2024 Southern Book Prize and was Reese’s Book Club’s 100th pick. Her earlier books are Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (2019), which won the Reed Environmental Writing Award in 2020; and Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South (2021), which won both the Southern Book Prize and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay in 2022. The companion journal for The Comfort of Crows—Leaf, Cloud, Crow: A Weekly Backyard Journal—appeared in 2024. Her first picture book, The Weedy Garden, is out now.

For nine years (2017-2026) Renkl was a contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times. Her column focused on the flora, fauna, politics, and culture of the American South.

The founding editor of Chapter 16, a daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee, and a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina, she lives in Nashville.
 

Roselle Public Library District Programming

Twelve Things That Make Life On Earth Possible
Tuesday, October 6, 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Join Michelle Nichols from the Adler Planetarium for a fascinating look at why Earth is uniquely suited for life. Discover twelve special characteristics that make Earth capable of sustaining life—and why it remains the only known planet in the universe to do so.

Between the Covers Book Discussion
Thursday, October 8, 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Roselle Public Library's book discussion group for adults meets on the second Thursday of every month. We read fiction, mystery, science fiction and everything in between. Join us at the Library to discuss this year's On the Same Page selection, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.

Drop-In Movie: A Walk In the Woods
Tuesday, October 13, 2:00-4:00 p.m.

In this droll comedy-drama, an aging travel writer decides to go on one last adventure by hiking the 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail with an eccentric friend. Along the way, the pair meet other determined oddballs and learn life lessons about mortality and friendship.
Starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson. Based on the acclaimed bestselling memoir of the same name. Rated 'R'.
 

On the Same Page participants are encouraged to attend programs at any of the  partnering libraries.

Visit the Bloomingdale Public Library Calendar of Events
to browse and register for On the Same Page programs.

Visit the Itasca Community Library Events Calendar
to browse and register for On the Same Page programs.

For further details, view and/or download the On the Same Page brochure.