Peculiar posted some time back on Eagle Dreams, and, on the theory that you can't get enough positive reinforcement, I thought I'd add a comment or two.

I read Eagle Dreams on my honeymoon, which ought to give you some idea how fascinating it is. It's like science-fiction, except for the fiction part--the birds are as alien as any extra-terrestrial. I found my stomach muscles tightening with excitement during the recounting of hunting with the eagles. And the book is unrelentingly informative and charming. Just wait 'til you learn what the word "Steve" means to his companions.

I had the good fortune to visit Mr. Bodio at his home some time ago. Someone described his study as Merlin's cave, from The Once and Future King, which is perfect, if Merlin had taken up hunting. Books cover every available inch, after which the unavailable inches are forced into double service, holding oddities of all imaginable genera. Beetles, wood-pecker and penguin skulls, a print of Genghis Khan on a hunting expedition, and small leather contraptions like harnesses which make one think that he must have a chariot drawn by raptors, like some Eastern European folk-tale. (It was later explained to me that the hoods had something to do with falconry). It very much was a wizard's workshop, and just the sort of space I'd like to spend hours in. Birds inside the house and out, dogs as odd as griffins, antique shotguns and an executioner's sword.

Eagle Dreams is exactly like that study: full of peculiarities which catch the attention immediately, each with a story to it, even if the eagles are the central figures. Following Mr. Bodio in his obsession means following him in his literary wanderings, too--any reader can easily come away with a list of twenty books or so that they now must read.

I mentioned above that my stomach muscles tightened while I read, and that's true of any of Mr. Bodio's books: they have a visceral quality which says that no matter how dream-like this landscape seems, no matter how far-off this story takes place, it was real, it happened like this, and this is how it felt to be riding with Kazakh eagle falconers.

So. Go get it. If we're lucky, he'll write more.

(And if you can, find a copy of A Rage for Falcons, which will introduce you to the...sport? profession? addiction? of falconry.)