This book is a tour de force in so many ways. The photographs, many of which are superb, are all taken by the author, and the words are all his and the book is published by him. This is the result of years of travel and is subtitled ‘One man’s mission to document climate change around the world’. And the book has a foreword by Jonathan Porritt too.
If a picture paints a thousands words then this book’s photographs paint millions. There are images of disappearing coastlines, flooded communities, burning forests, melted glaciers and dying wildlife but also of brave and sometimes triumphant people and images of great beauty that are very moving.
The book has a large format and the reproduction of the images is of a very high quality. Let’s avoid the ‘coffee table’ label because this is a serious book but once you pick it up (if you can – it’s heavy) then you are holding hundreds of stunning images and you will be turning the pages for more.
Where the book is weaker, though the images compensate greatly for these points, is in its structure and text. The book has too many images and not enough words to carry you through from a beginning to an end with a message. Some whole chapters are really pictures with captions rather than a narrative. Maybe it’s because I don’t ‘do’ pictures that I am impressed by them so much (but I think you will be too) and maybe because I try to ‘do’ words that I give them quite a lot of attention but my feeling is that the balance is a bit wrong. The author needed an editor to catch some of the typos, inconsistencies of text and to ditch some images and add some words.
But having said that, I am very pleased to have this book. If one picked an image a day to look at, it would be a pleasure, and also an education to spend that time thinking about climate change and what it is doing to the world which we share with so many fellow creatures. The book is a great achievement for a single bloke and I admire his commitment to a cause and his eye for an image.
Remarkable Birds by Mark Avery is published by Thames and Hudson – for reviews see here.
Inglorious: conflict in the uplands by Mark Avery is published by Bloomsbury – for reviews see here.
Behind the Binoculars: interviews with acclaimed birdwatchers by Mark Avery and Keith Betton is published by Pelagic – here’s a review and it’s now out in paperback.
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