As the National Audubon Society recovers from a referendum to change its name in light of the fact that America’s founding birder was a slave owner (the name stayed), a luxe reissue of John James Audubon’s magnum opus, BIRDS OF AMERICA (Abbeville, $195), proves the man’s artistry itself unimpeachable. His paintings foretold the ambitions of the camera, and at only a quarter of the size of the four-volume folio that was first published between 1827 and 1838, this still hefty edition preserves the poetic backdrops and fierce detail of the original. The copperplate lines are so exact they mimic the individual venation of feathers; the neck of a gyrfalcon takes on all the ripply realism of moiréd silk.

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Persons: birder, John James Audubon’s Organizations: National Audubon Society, OF Locations: Abbeville