Talking Volumes with Margaret Renkl

Minnesota Public Radio and the Star Tribune are proud to announce the 23rd season of Talking Volumes. Talking Volumes is hosted by award-winning journalist Kerri Miller. We are happy to announce that we will be back in the cozy confines of the Fitzgerald Theater this fall for discussions with four great authors.

The Comfort of Crows to be released October 24, 2023, Spiegel & Grau

About the Author

Margaret Renkl is the author of Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss and Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where her essays appear weekly. 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.

About the Book

In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a devotional of sorts: fifty-two essays 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 gorgeous four-color artworks by the author’s brother—whose collages also accompanied Late Migrations, Renkl’s Read with Jenna/TODAY Show book club pick—The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a beloved writer. “