To See Every Bird on Earth is a story trying to make a cohesive sense of the differently interwoven aspects of family, obsession, beauty, how humans grow and change, and how it is that we all try to find fulfillment in our lives. Rather than treat any these issues fully, the work to lightly skips over all of them, leaving us unsure as to how the interactions of each are understood. At its core the book suffers from one key shortcoming: there simply isn't enough about birds and birding. One gets the sense that perhaps the work would have had more resonance if his father, Richard Koeppel, would have helped to write about what drove him for half-a-century to pursue birds to every corner of the globe, and why this passion too-often felt like an unnecessary distraction to the elder Koeppel and others in his life. That someone would pursue the chance to break free in such an esoteric fashion certainly can open many doors to fascinating aspects of nature, society, relationships between people, and how we think of our place in the world. Koeppel gives many of these issues, but they could use a heavier hand. Though the work is light and allows a relatively dry topic to move with fluidity - this the books greatest strength - it is really a story about a man and his relationship to his father, with all the strengths and weaknesses of an adequately executed work within that genre.
