Burn-it-Down Memoirs from Women Who Lived Their Truth

To mark each of her childhood birthdays, Nikki Moustaki's grandfather, Poppy, gives her a pristine white dove to release into the sky. As an adult, Moustaki raises the birds, accumulating a flock of lovebirds, finches and parrots, which she cares for until Poppy's death and her advancing alcoholism take their toll. Poppy's final wish—that Moustaki travel to the Parisian bird market where "the street smelled like flowers and the musty perfume of birds, whose voices swelled inside the alleyway and bounced off the breeze"—forces her to come to terms with her recovery in the least likely of places, an abandoned bird sanctuary.