“World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After” by Martha Park, Hub City Press, 240 pages.

It’s hard to say something new about a bird that’s likely been extinct for over 80 years, especially one like the ivory-billed woodpecker — a species that has generated its own cottage industry of books, essays, scientific surveys and conspiracy theories since its last universally accepted sighting back in 1944.

But in “World Without End,” Martha Park's debut collection of essays exploring the intersections of the climate crisis and faith, Park adds a fresh twist to the ivory-billed saga.

She’s interested in the religious overtones of the bird’s many nicknames: the Good Lord Bird (for the exclamatory disbelief purportedly expressed upon seeing the woodpecker’s enormity), the Grail Bird (after

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