Sam Keen, the New York Times best-selling author of Fire in the Belly, has spent a lifetime reflecting on nature. In Sightings, a collection of essays, bird watching forms the basis for observations spiritual and soulful, witty and wise. He describes his childhood ramblings in the silence of the Tennessee wilderness as feeling distinctly more spiritualthan the hard pews of his grandmother's church. Later in life, the presumed extinction and subsequent rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker prompts a meditation on the nature of the sacred. Blessed with moments of beauty and the insight to recognize them as such, Keen translates the marvels of nature into the language of heart and soul.

 If you have never read a book about UFOs and have always wondered whether there is anything to the subject then this is definitely the book you should read first. Leslie Kean does not set out to prove that UFOs are controlled by aliens. No-one has enough evidence to make that kind of claim, and sensibly, Kean is aiming at convincing readers of something more modest. Namely, that there have been a number of sightings of exotic and strange flying objects that have been seen by a large number of people simultaneously, including persons in positions of high responsibility.