Jon Day还是小男孩时，曾经对鸽子非常着迷，他过去常常在伦敦街上解救鸽子。20年后，他从市中心搬到郊区，开始了自己的家庭。但是，在搬家的过程中，他渐渐觉得自己失去那种“家的感觉”。
他重新拾起过去对鸟的那种迷恋，他在自家花园里盖了一座鸽舍，加入当地的赛鸽具乐部。接下来几年，他和家人住在莱顿，他学会训练自己的鸽子然后赛鸽，希望这么做能够让他找回“家的感觉”。
鸽子和人类密切生活了数万年，已经成为代表和平与家庭的象征。但同时，他们也受到了极大的诽谤，今日，大部分的人都认为这些鸟就像害虫一样。
这本书讲述了鸽子的美，也谈到巢的意义。《归》深入研究鸽子奇特的世界、探索动物归巢的科学奥秘，同时也追朔了家庭在文化、政治及哲学上的意义。这是一本讲述打造一个家及为什么打造一个家的书—一本讲述为什么我们会回家的书。
本书好评
I love Jon Day's writing and his birds. A marvellous, soaring account (Olivia Laing)
Homing did something I thought would be impossible - made me fall in love with the humble, familiar feral pigeon. It is both a repository of fascinating stories and memorable characters, and a deeply felt personal enquiry into the nature of 'home'. Every page of this beautifully written book brought me pleasure (Charlotte Higgins)
In this lucid and beguiling book, Jon Day has written marvellously interwoven tale of our two species (Jonathan Raban)
A meditation that swoops agilely over topics from tyranny of technology to the paradoxes of parenting and the rewards of simply staying put. . . . A joyful, richly rewarding book (Mail on Sunday)
Big-hearted and quietly gripping (The Guardian)
'[A] beautiful book about unbeautiful birds' Observer
'This is nature writing at its best'Financial Times
[A] Vivid evocation of a remarkable species and a rich working-class tradition...a charming defence of a much-maligned bird (Daily Mail)
Day's stories from the history of human-pigeon relations are well chosen and well told ... there's a great deal to like in the simple imagery of a young family and their pigeons growing up together in an east London home (Literary Review)
This beautiful book by an English lecturer-cum-pigeon fancier reveals eerie parallels between human and bird life ... [A] beautiful book about unbeautiful birds (The Observer)
Jon Day takes on the humble racing pigeon to ask just what home is, how we establish it, miss it and depart and return to it. He elevates this heroic bird to its rightful place in natural history and our history too, and celebrates its shared instinct with us for home... the art his own family and academic career... He has many fascinating accounts of how we've exploited these miraculous birds' homing instincts in war and peace... Day swoops and soars over many fields of art and science to unravel our instinct for home Endlessly interesting and dazzlingly erudite, this wonderful book will make a home for itself in your heart (Prospect Magazine)
关于作者
Jon Day是伦敦国王学院的英语讲师，他为许多报章杂志撰写文章，包括：London Review of Books、New York Review of Books、Guardian、Financial Times 等。他的第一本著作是 Cyclogeography(2015)。他目前和家人住在伦敦。
