We Should All Be Birds cover art

We Should All Be Birds

A Memoir

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

We Should All Be Birds

By: Brian Buckbee, Carol Ann Fitzgerald
Narrated by: Brian Buckbee
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £10.79

Buy Now for £10.79

About this listen

 “A sparkling example of the best kind of first-person storytelling in that its specificity succeeds in revealing universal truths…An extraordinary story full of humanity and life lessons from a man whose disability has largely removed him from society.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A charming and moving debut memoir about how a man with a mystery illness saves a pigeon, and how the pigeon saves the man.

Featuring an exclusive audio conversation between Brian Buckbee and Carol Ann Fitzgerald.

On a spring evening in Montana, Brian Buckbee encounters an injured baby pigeon. Heartbroken after the loss of the love of his life and increasingly isolated by a mysterious illness that overtook him while trekking through Asia, Brian is unaware that this bird?who he names Two-Step?will change his life. Brian takes in Two-Step, and more injured birds, eventually transforming his home into a madcap bird rehabilitation and rescue center. As Brian and Two-Step grow closer, an unexpected kinship forms. But their paths won’t converge forever: as Two-Step heals and finds love, Brian’s condition worsens, and with his friend’s release back into the world looming closer, Brian must decide where this story leaves him.

We Should All Be Birds follows Brian, unable to read or write due to a never-ending headache, as he dictates the end of his old life?as an adventurer, an iconoclastic university instructor, and endurance athlete?through his relationship with a pigeon that comes to define his present. Limited to dictation, Brian teams up with Carol Ann Fitzgerald, an editor who channels the details of his personal history to the pages. Raw and perceptive, delirious and devastating, We Should All Be Birds is an unflinching exploration of chronic illness, grief, connection, and the spectacular beauty of the natural world?and the humble pigeon. The surprising, heartwarming relationship between man and bird provides insight into what it means to love, to suffer, and to “never forget, even for a second, how big it all is.” Animals Biological Sciences Birds Editors Select Medical Outdoors & Nature Pets & Animal Care Physical Illness & Disease Professionals & Academics Science Heartfelt

Editorial Review

When caregiving becomes self-care
I was deeply touched by the tenderness woven throughout every detail of this special debut memoir. Brian Buckbee is an elderly man suffering from a mysterious illness causing a debilitating years-long headache, as well as prolonged heartbreak and loneliness. His misery compounds during the COVID-19 pandemic, until Buckbee finds a glimmer of companionship and purpose when he takes in a wounded bird named Two-Step, then others, turning his home into a rescue-and-return bird sanctuary. Editor Carol Ann Fitzgerald documents the details of Buckbee’s lifelong memories in a series of intimately narrated vignettes by Buckbee—who is otherwise unable to write or concentrate for extended periods of time due to his condition. The two form an unlikely friendship in the process. Grab your tissues—lots of them. We Should All Be Birds reminds us that every connection in life is at once precious and powerful. —Rachael X., Audible Editor

Critic reviews

"Brian Buckbee gives his memoir a careful, unadorned narration. He pulls listeners in close as he weaves the story of his encounter with an injured pigeon in Montana after the loss of his partner and the onset of a debilitating neurological condition. As Buckbee describes taking in the bird he eventually names Two-Step, his pacing reflects the slowed, pensive tone of days shaped by grief and loss. He recounts the transformation of his home into a small rescue space as he begins caring for other birds and strengthening his bond with Two-Step. These hopeful elements contrast with the parallel decline of his own health. Sharing the weight of these events with listeners, Buckbee is hopeful and resigned as Two-Step is prepared for release."
All stars
Most relevant
In one sense, We Should All Be Birds is a wonderful book. I picked this one up because I'm a fan of pigeons myself, and the premise of a man who fosters and looks after these kinds of birds was an intriguing one. For this part, the book does a wonderful job in discussing what it is like living with pigeons, their habits, their routines and everything else. The losses and sad parts are also very well narrated. I felt for little Two Step, and I was grateful to hear about his story and the endearing bond he forms with the author.

In another sense, We Should All Be Birds is also an entirely different book, which is one also focused on the author's life before he contracted a mysterious illness which limited his ability to go outside and explore the world as he used to. These aspects of the book, while vital, also introduce a few strange elements and pieces of context.

One of them is the author's breakup with his girlfriend, Elle. Elle is depicted as someone flawless and untouchable in the author's memory and, in this sense (and as the author well acknowledges), there is nothing here for the reader to really grasp onto.

This is then coupled with the etiology of the narrator's mysterious illness, which is explored as the memoir progresses. We come to learn, by the end of the book, that the author first fell truly ill whilst on a forty day trip abroad in an effort to move past the breakup with his girlfriend. The doctors at the time explore every possibility, but ultimately they suspect that the illness may be psychosomatic. One can reasonably see here, listening to this story as presented, an obvious connection: the author fell ill /because/ of the breakup with the girlfriend he keeps revisiting in his mind, the one thing that gives his life purpose and meaning and orientation. This is dismissed out of hand by the author, however, as meaning only that he must be "weak" and "pathetic", because it would mean it is "all in his head". Frustratingly, therefore, the idea gets thrown out and is never explored.

This sort of masculine insecurity, "weakness" and feeling "pathetic", is the mantra that ends up hanging over the whole book. What starts as a sensitive and gentle reflection on what it is like to care for a pigeon and to live in a mutually healing sort of way becomes a kind of sad memoir about someone who refuses the help of others and sees no chance of healing or ever connecting with other people in a meaningful way again. The narrator claims to never want to distort the truth because, to him, that is "insane", but the book is chock full of distortions. The past is an idealised place where nothing was ever bad; the present is an endless torment that cannot be escaped. The author closes down all connections to his friends and loved ones, leaves the dating world behind, and imagines that people must now only see him as a lost cause who is wasting away in his dark and lonely hlme. The pigeons seem to give him joy, but all he can ever really do is ruminate on the past.

The book, in this way, ends up feeling like one long psychoanalysis session with no final breakthrough. It's a meditation on one's life that refuses to confront life as it is. There are some wonderful things to get out of this memoir, and it is an interesting listen, but I do feel it spins its yarn on a lot of threads that end up nowhere. It's almost anti-therapeutic.

An at times frustrating listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
We Should All Be Birds is an absolutely beautiful and moving story. Brian’s honesty and openness really tore at my heartstrings. Listening to his journey was both heart-breaking and inspiring—I felt so deeply for him, and it made me pause and reflect on my own life. The way he wove his story was tender and powerful, and it was clear just how much Two Step meant to him. This book has stayed with me long after finishing. Sending Brian so much love and hope for his recovery.

Raw, honest and deeply moving

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.