Margaret Renkl on ‘The Comfort of Crows’

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

The 25th season of Talking Volumes launches later this month. To celebrate, we thought we’d bring you one of our favorite conversations from last year.

The 2023 season finale of Talking Volumes brought author and columnist Margaret Renkl to Minnesota hours after the first snow carpeted our Northern landscape.

She declared it “magical” — a theme familiar to those who’ve read her New York Times columns or her newest book, “The Comfort of Crows.”

In it, the self-described backyard naturalist details what she saw in her Tennessee half-acre backyard over the course of 52 weeks. She laughs at the bumblebees and fusses over foxes. She laments the absence of birds and butterflies that used to be proliferate. But she also refuses to give in to despair.

For those of us paying attention, she told MPR News host Kerri Miller, it would be “easy for the grief to take over.”

“But what a waste it would be if we did that,” she added. “If it’s true, that we’re going to lose all the songbirds — at least the migratory ones — how much more are we obliged to notice them and treasure them while we have them?”

Don’t miss this warm and candid conversation about the gift of nature, the solace of observation and the gospel Renkl finds in her own backyard.

And get your tickets for the 25th season of Talking Volumes, which includes authors Edwidge Danticat, Alice Hoffman, Louise Erdrich and Kate DiCamillo, here.