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While this book starts of very pleasant, I could tell straight away that it was by no means a philosophy but rather very vague, undirected musings upon different species of bird and spinning it into "self help" territory, which I found a little dull, but the authors' constant straying into the hierarchy and relationship territory got progressively more irritating, and it eventually fully progresses into "feminist" assaults on being simply male. Near the latter end of the book there are much more detailed and interesting accounts of certain bird families and other things like accent, commonality of theft, parasitism and so on, actually helping me learn something new, but this is sadly outweighed by its bad sides.

The most frustrating of these was their reflection of France' national animal being the cockrel and despite explaining *why*(Latin slang in Rome compared the Gallic tribes to cockrels because of their similar namesakes), tries to pathetically spin this into the ignorance of dah patriarchy and how women would have made selection of national emblem(as if it really matters THATmuch) so much better.

At other times they seems to border on promoting promiscuity in humans. I expected these efforts to border into same-sex relationships in the animal world, something which i find very interesting, but the two authors very briefly gloss over this and favour focusing on monogamous parallels with birds and humans, and social hierarchies like alpha and beta males in female competition, but bringing it down to female "choice". Why was the constant commentary on male-female social dynamics needed but not softening the mentioned presence of homosexual companionship in the animal world?


While the authors have some pleasant prose (maybe by the help of the English translator) and a clearly detailed knowledge of birds, this is by no means a philosophy book, but rather a platform for social commentary and borderline identity politics; I see parts of this book (likely Rosseau's writings) as a primary example of the problems with the contemporary Humanities.
As other reviews have said this book feels very snarky and condescending, but frankly, it is very easy to spin the constant judgement of the authors around and say that this shows a very narrow middle-class, college-educated mindset.

TL;DR : Some good moments and interesting explorations on different birds but.. - Not philosophy but vague self help - constant interjection of needless feminist "burns" - shows a narrow view of humanity in general

1.5/5