This cover image released by Doubleday shows The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany, an illustrated compilation of folktales, poems, fiction and nonfiction by Graeme Gibson. “The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany," an illustrated compilation of folktales, poems, fiction and nonfiction that Gibson had assembled on his own, was originally published in 2005. Nothing could be more magnificent.”“The Bedside Book of Birds” is divided into nine sections — “habitats,” Gibson called them — that center on such themes as birds as omens, as revelations, avengers and mysteries. The Cold War had ended, the Berlin Wall had come down in 1989 and people were saying things like ‘the end of history.’ That was wrong, wrong, wrong,” Atwood said. They're very smart, and they have very long memories.”In his book, Gibson also describes an unexpected bond with a parrot named Harold Wilson.