People don't give a lot of thought to Pigeons and pigeon fanciers are often thought of as idosyncratic weirdo's or old men. The odd looking pigeon just doesn't get the prestige of the parrot or bird of prey. Jon Day will win you around to the humble pigeon with his lovely writing style and gentle art of persuasion. His passion shines though and I hope it makes the reader reconsider this humble bird.

This is one of those touching, albeit low key accounts of a man’s relationship with his animals. Yet I suspect it will stay lodged in my psyche for a long time. It is just lovely and sensitive and full of detail that left me wanting to know more about these birds. There are many strands to this narrative: the author’s place in his life and the house he and his partner are living in, his relationship with the work class community around him and that of his pigeons. All animal lovers should read this. I will honestly never look at pigeons in the same way again. What intelligent animal they are.

The ubiquitous pigeon is an amazing bird when bred for racing. Its average body temperature is slightly higher than other warm-blooded species, making them more resistant to pathogens. It is one of the few creatures to recognise themselves in a mirror. Nature's fastest bird accelerating from 0-60 mph in under 2 seconds and can comfortably fly at 50mph all day long. These seemingly unknown facts litter this highly readable account of pigeon racing, a hobby sadly in decline. Jon Day also poses the question of what we think of home, a question analysed by some of the world's greatest writers. Running through this narrative is his experience of living in East London and starting a young family with a loft of pigeons. Jon Day describes with great skill his passion for this niche hobby. Recommended.

Homing explores the affinity many people have with this unique breed of bird and what they can effectively tell us about our philosophical yearning to belong and having a place to call our own to return to in order to recharge. It is so much more profound than just a book on birds, and one thing is for certain this will change your view of them the next time you encounter them in the street or by the seaside. It's an information-rich, thought-provoking read and is part memoir of author Jon Day and part emotional ode to the diminishing art of pigeon fancying. It charts his return to pigeon keeping at a time when he felt disconnected from the world and illustrates beautifully the healing power of nature.

Day also joins a pigeon racing club, one of the few to survive in his area as the sport declined in popularity, and takes part in a race from Thurso, Scotland to his home in Leyton with each alternate chapter updating us on the pigeons' progress as they navigate around such issues as the weather and predators. It's not necessary to know anything at all about the sport as all terminology unique to pigeon fancying is explained clearly and concisely in the text; I thoroughly enjoyed learning about a new topic. Being a philosophy graduate I appreciated Mr Day discussing the topic of homecoming and how important it is to our mental health situation in both a physical and spiritual way.

A fascinating read written with real care and consideration; you can tell how much Day appreciates these birds. Highly recommended. Many thanks to John Murray for an ARC.

A wonderful interesting read. It’s beautifully written and well balanced.
Thank you to both NetGalley and John Murray Press for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

When Jon Day and his wife move, they are looking for somewhere to call 'home' and initially they are excited with their new home. But it takes them longer than expected to settle and they miss friends and family. A return to a childhood interest in pigeons leads Jon to consider the question of 'home' - what it means, and why some places feel more like home than others. As he takes his birds out on training 'throws' and his young pigeons develop their homing instinct, so the couple and their growing family discover their own sense of place.
A fascinating read - part memoir, part study of pigeons. Thought provoking and page-turning. A highly recommended addition to modern nature writing shelves.

Die Liebe zu Tauben durchdringt jede Zeile dieses Buches und bringt dem Leser ein paar interessante Fakten näher nebst einem tieferen Verständnis über eine zu Unrecht als "Flugratten" verschriene Spezies.

One thing that is certain after reading this remarkably informative and thought provoking personal account by Jon Day is that the reader will now look at the next pigeon they see in a totally different way. Part memoir, part exploration into the dying (certainly with regard to the UK) world of pigeon fancying but more importantly it is part philosophical musing on what actually is meant by home and the need shared both by pigeons and humans to return to it. The author documents how despite just moving just a few miles from one part of East London to another he at first experiences a feeling of disconnect in his new environment that is further away from the gravitational pull and allure of the city centre.

In an effort to return to the familiarity of the past he resurrects his previous obsession with birds and builds a garden coop and enters the world of pigeon fancying which is a word covering the breeding, competitive showing and racing of domestic pigeons. He joins a local pigeon racing club, one of the few remaining in the area and eventually after many trials and tribulations enters a race that will see his birds fly 504 miles from Thurso at the extreme north of Scotland to his home in Leyton. Each alternate chapter looks at the various stages in the race as the pigeons attempt to evade predators, the vagaries of the weather and the as yet little understood influences of the likes of mobile phone signals to complete the race by dusk. Will the pigeons from Thurso all arrive safely home?

Reading the book you will learn of the term and terminologies associated with the sport including liberation, the difference between north road and south road and what is meant by the widowhood system. My liking of the book was enhanced by my knowledge of the area where the author now lives with its nearness to marshes and waterways and of course Epping Forest where John Clare that much troubled poet absconded from the asylum at High Beach to walk some 90 miles to meet his first love Mary Joyce not believing her family when they told him she had died three years earlier in a house fire. Homecoming and what constitutes home in both a physical and metaphysical sense is explored here with reference to the work of W. G. Sebald, Simone Weil, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger and many others.

Reading the book I was left with a feeling that with its predominately older male working class adherents certainly with regard to London, pigeon fancying was slowly heading on the way out and would at sometime soon be featured in a episode of a "Forgotten London" television programme (they are normally narrated by Suggs) along with greyhound racing, speedway, lidos and postwar prefab homes. A wonderfully loving and at times spiritual book this I think will appeal to the reader on a number of levels.