Posted inBooks
The Granite Kingdom by Tim Hannigan
In conversation with the author of this book, I once described my early impressions of Cornwall as a kind of ramshackle Eden. My first two visits were in the late…
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The Jay The Birch And The Limpetshell by Richard Smyth
This marvellous book is subtitled ‘Finding Wild Things With My Kids’ but I wouldn’t let that put you off even if, like me, you have never had any children of…
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Birds and Us by Tim Birkhead
For me, a new title by Tim Birkhead has been a must-read ever since I came across his The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Birds a few years…
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Rhythms of Nature by Ian Carter
Yesterday I was in the marvellous Etches Collection in Kimmeridge. Along the walls are examples of marine fossils and explanations about what we know about the lives of the animals…
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A Dark and Stormy Night
Nightfall on the last day of January 1938. A heavy Atlantic swell rolls in from the northwest. The steamship Alba, carrying coal to Mussolini’s factories in Italy and a crew…
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Mackerel Fishing on the Lillie May
It was a pin-sharp sunny day: warm, but with enough of a breeze to stop it from being overbearing. I tore down towards the water’s edge, ahead of the others,…
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Modern British Nature Writing, 1789-2020 Landlines By Will Abberley, Christina Alt, David Higgins, Graham Huggan and Pippa Marland.
This is a beautifully produced and fascinating study of nature writing from Gilbert White to the present. Being a book aimed at the academic market it is very expensive and…
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FAMILIAR SHORES: How South Africa taught me to love the coast
I had always known my mum wanted to move away. Whenever we would take childhood trips through the Lego-model villages and sweeping valleys of the Dales or the Lake District…
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The Past is a Dangerous Driver by Neal Mason
Neal Mason is a mature poet who has been publishing collections of his work since the early 1990s and has appeared in many poetry magazines. I had not previously come…
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Coed Felenrhyd
My first visit to the temperate rainforest of Coed Felenrhyd in North Wales was in early autumn. Entering the ancient site was to walk into a cathedral, a multi-layered, multi-faceted…