This book is about an orchard and its wildlife. Month by month the two authors describe aspects of the orchard’s year. It sounds a nice place with its ancient trees and rich wildlife. As you travel through the pages then you may well wish you were there – I did.
I enjoyed hearing about the apples and pears as much as, perhaps more than, about the wildlife. And I think that is because the point of an orchard is to grow fruit and it felt a little as though the wonderful orchard was sometimes being used to tell a wildlife story that could have been told in a garden or any old wood. Whereas learning a little about varieties of fruit, the way they are grown, the age of the trees and cider-making seemed very much to the point.
However, the suggestion, probably that of the publisher rather than the authors, that ‘If we can rewild England’s orchards then not only wildlife but people will have a far richer England to profit from in centuries to come.’ is not only a rather ugly sentence but is also pretty unlikely to be remotely true. The colour photographs don’t really add much to the book, I felt. The jacket illustration, for which I can find no acknowledgement in the book, is pleasant at first sight but for any birder (or maybe it’s just me, it might be actually) it’s a bit irritating because the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker has the shape and structure of a Great Spot donning the plumage of its smaller, much cuter relative.
I enjoyed Ben Macdonald’s previous book, Rebirding, very much (see review here) but this is a different kettle of fish, or orchard of apples, as a book. Whereas Rebirding had pace, drive and a direction this book is a pleasant stroll in the present rather than an urgent march to a better future. They are different books but whereas Rebirding on first reading went easily into my ‘excellent’ category, this one will remain in ‘really rather good’ as far as I am concerned. And although this is entirely a matter of taste, I did prefer Ben’s seven chapters to Nick’s five.
Orchard: a year in England’s Eden by Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates is published by William Collins.
I can tell you now that next week’s book review will be of Laurence Rose’s Framing Nature.
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Interesting review, thanks Mark. Rebirding is out in paperback now and it’s such a landmark book I bought one rather than borrow the library copy. I was delighted to find out it’s been updated, pretty comprehensively by the look of it – so much has happened from new research to white storks at Knepp, sea eagles on the south coast in just the year since the original hardback came out. Exciting times.
Was surprised by Tim Avery’s reservations vis à vis this book. A friend presented me with a copy after I reminisced about the orchard where I grew up. I loved this book and its emphasis on the wildlife of the orchard. It is called Orchard, after all, and the book promises to describe its life over a year. Which it does! I will keep it by my bed to dip into and enjoy. Did Tim get up on the wrong side of the bed? Such a curmudgeonly response to the book’s dust jacket!. It’s a lovely stylized picture, not a botanically accurate illustration after all.