title: UnicodeDecodeError 'utf-8' codec can't decode - using python shapefile reader
body: <p>I'm trying to read a shapefile</p>
  
  <pre><code>r = shapefile.Reader(filepath, encoding = "utf-8")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but when I try to get a value from the <strong>.records()</strong> object like: </p>
  
  <pre><code> r.records()[0]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>it returns to me the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in position 4: invalid continuation byte
  </code></pre>