09/27/2026
I stumbled across David Gessner’s The Book of Flaco: The World’s Most Famous Bird having somehow missed Flaco’s story entirely when it unfolded. This was an unexpected find that completely delivered. It reads almost like a documentary, with Gessner piecing together Flaco’s remarkable journey through the people who watched, tracked, photographed, and ultimately came to care deeply about him.
At its center is Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl whose enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was deliberately vandalized, setting him loose in the middle of New York City. What makes the book so fascinating, though, is everything that unfolds from there. His astonishing instinctual resilience after a lifetime in captivity raises questions about freedom versus safety, captivity versus wildness, and whether he should be recaptured at all. Gessner also explores the ethics of birding itself: sharing owl locations, crowds and disturbance, social media, technology, and our responsibility as observers. It’s a remarkably modern bird story where an ancient wild animal collides with New York City, smartphones, social media, conservation, and human nature. One of the book’s best moments, for me, comes near the end when Gessner quietly makes clear where he stands in the larger debate surrounding Flaco, and it’s beautifully done.
Absolutely fascinating and an easy recommendation. 10/10. And a huge shout out to Open Door Bookstore & Boutique for maintaining such a well curated nature section and putting books like this on my radar.
