(Robert Macfarlane and Ellen Waterston)
Paulina Springs Books will host acclaimed author Robert Macfarlane for a special event on Wednesday, June 3, from 5:30-7pm at The Belfry. The evening will feature Macfarlane in conversation with Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston discussing his newest book, The Book of Birds, and the paperback release of Is a River Alive? The evening will bring together two celebrated voices for a wide-ranging discussion on literature, landscape, birds, rivers and the living world.
Macfarlane is internationally admired for writing that illuminates the deep relationships among language, place, memory and the natural world. His work has inspired readers across disciplines, from literature and conservation to walking, art and ecology, making this a rare opportunity for Central Oregon audiences to hear from one of the defining nature writers of his generation.
The Book of Birds is a field guide with a difference: It shows readers not just how to identify birds, but also how to identify with them. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris conjure the unique spirit of nearly fifty once-common species: avocet to yellowhammer, kestrel to kingfisher, skylark to nightingale. In lyrical and incantatory essays, Macfarlane describes each bird’s habits and habitats, their patterns of flight and patterns of song, how they hunt or fish or scavenge or gather, how they nest and raise their chicks, the myths that attend them, the threats that shadow them — and how their lives intersect with our own. On every page we encounter Morris’s exhilarating artwork, painted from life in watercolor and gold leaf, and animated with an extraordinary attention to detail. The Book of Birds is a love letter to the thrilling variety and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the rapid depletion of our skies.
Following the discussion, guests will have the opportunity to continue the evening with an intimate dinner among the stacks at Paulina Springs Books. Seating is extremely limited for this post-event gathering, which offers guests the chance to dine alongside Robert Macfarlane and Ellen Waterston in the bookstore. The dinner menu is developed in collaboration with Chef Jackson Higdon and is inspired by themes and imagery from Macfarlane’s work.
Event tickets are $35 and include a pre-signed copy of The Book of Birds. Ticket holders have the option of purchasing one $15 guest ticket. Dinner tickets are $125 and include a four-course chef’s dinner and a beverage.
Tickets, dinner information and menu details are available at PaulinaSpringsBooks.com.
About the authors:
Robert Macfarlane’s best-selling books include Underland, The Old Ways and Mountains of the Mind. With the artist Jackie Morris he is the coauthor of The Lost Words, The Lost Spells and The Book of Birds. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence and is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
In 2024, Ellen Waterston was named to a two-year term as the 11th Poet Laureate of Oregon and has so far visited 22 out of 36 counties across Oregon’s 96,000 square miles. Waterston has dedicated herself to writing and advocating for the literary arts in the high desert region of Oregon, all the while continuing to write poetry and nonfiction works that have evolved into essential reading about Oregon and the West. As an award-winning high desert author and poet, Waterston has published five poetry and four literary nonfiction titles, including, most recently, As Far as I Can Anthem, Poems (2026), We Could Die Doing This (2024) and Walking the High Desert (2020). She has received the Soapstone Bread and Roses Award, the Stewart H Holbrook Award, an honorary PhD in the Humane Letters from OSU-Cascades.
