The Comfort of Crows

From the author of Late Migrations comes a luminous book tracing the passing of seasons, personal and natural.

In The Comfort of Crows, New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year—what develops is a portrait of joy and grief. Joy at the ongoing pleasures of the natural world: “Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will always find a reason to love the world.” And grief at a shifting climate, at winters that end too soon, at songbirds growing fewer and fewer.

Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with every passing day. How can one person make a difference amid such destabilizing changes?

With fifty-two original color artworks by Billy Renkl, the author’s brother, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a beloved writer.

Interested in reading The Comfort of Crows with your book club? Download the book club kit for recipes, discussion questions, and more.

New York Times bestseller
Reese’s Book Club pick #100
Winner of the 2024 Southern Book Prize for Nonfiction
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Barnes & Noble Best Books 2023
Shelf Awareness 2023 Best Books of the Year
Garden & Gun Best Books of 2023
Good Housekeeping November Book Club Pick
Parnassus Books’ October First Editions Club selection
LibraryReads Nonfiction Bonus Pick
Indie Next Pick
SIBA Read This Next Pick
Barnes & Noble Most Anticipated Books of October
Amazon Best Biographies & Memoirs of November
USA Today Bestseller
IndieBound Best seller
Washington Post Bestseller
Boston Globe Bestseller

Order signed and personalized copies of The Comfort of Crows from Parnassus Books!

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“The Comfort of Crows is a howling love letter to the world, the story of what we’ve lost and what we can save and the abundance of wonder in our own backyard. Margaret Renkl is a singular, spectacular writer, and this book, like life itself, is a cause for celebration.”

―Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House

“This triumph of a book gives us a charming and wise friend to guide us over the course of a year, but I am certain Margaret Renkl’s enchanting voice will echo for lifetimes to come. The Comfort of Crows is an instant classic, not just for the planet, but—and most importantly—for our hearts too.”

―Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders

“Margaret Renkl has the mind of a naturalist and the soul of a poet. Let this magnificent devotional be your eye-opening, heart-expanding daily companion, and it will change how you see the world.”

―Mary Laura Philpott, author of Bomb Shelter

“Reading Margaret Renkl always connects me more deeply to the natural world and to my own heart. The Comfort of Crows is an elegy, a provocation, and above all a love letter to the magnificence that still surrounds us, if only we are awake enough to look. I want to press it into the hands of everyone I know.”

—Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance

“This is a lovely prayer book centered on plants and animals, an important reminder of grace and of the necessity of placing public green spaces in reach of everyone.”

—Catherine Raven, author of Fox & I

Learn More about The Comfort of Crows

Coming in September 2024:
Leaf, Cloud, Crow: A Weekly Backyard Journal

Through guided prompts and tips for observation, this companion to The Comfort of Crows will deepen your experience of the nearby natural world.

Learn More about Leaf, Cloud, Crow

About

Margaret Renkl is the author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, which was published in October 2023 and which won the 2024 Southern Book Prize. Her earlier books are Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (2019), which won the Reed Environmental Writing Award in 2020; and Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South (2021), which won both the Southern Book Prize and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay in 2022. The companion journal for The Comfort of Crows—Leaf, Cloud, Crow: A Weekly Backyard Journal—is forthcoming this fall.

Since 2017, Renkl has served as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where her essays appear each Monday. The founding editor of Chapter 16, a daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee, and a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina, she lives in Nashville.

Check in with Margaret on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Margaret’s Team

Publicity, Spiegel & Grau
Nicole Dewey

Literary Agent, ICM Partners
Kristyn Keene Benton

Speaking Agent, Authors Unbound
Christie Hinrichs
View my speaker profile here.

Downloadable Media Materials

High-res book jacket for Leaf, Cloud, Crow

High-res book jacket for Late Migrations

High-res book jacket for Graceland, At Last

High-res book jacket for Graceland, At Last (paperback)

High-res book jacket for The Comfort of Crows

High-res author photo for Margaret Renkl
credit William DeShazer