I like to listen to books about feats of endurance while I run, so I am always combing through my libraries’ audiobooks to find something new. That is how I found out about this book.

The Sun is a Compass is calming, soothing, introspective, and meditative. There are a couple bear encounters and scary river forging moments, but 80% of this book is about birds. The author is an ornithologist, so that is a lot of what she thought about on her trek. Birds, trail food, and relationship thoughts about her partner and family are the bulk of the book. It’s not boring, but I was basing my ideas about the content on the cover and I didn’t know that it was going to be so slow or that it was mostly about birds.

The few times that the author and her partner came across people were always interesting. People in remote Alaska are just interesting folks...I guess it comes with the territory. I have listened to a podcast episode about living in a rural Alaskan commune and it was fascinating. I would love to read an entire book about the residents of an Alaskan village and their lives through the four seasons.