This approaches a coffee table book. Open the book at almost any page and you will find pleasant and arresting images, often close-ups of plants. And on many pages there are some thoughtful words, often quotes from the dead and famous. It’s a good book with which to spend some time. I enjoyed looking through its pages but it didn’t grab me with either the words or images.
For me, there are too many images, nice individually, indeed, like the cover, very attractive individually, but rather ‘samey’ in bulk. There’s only so far one can go with examining ‘the curious truth about nature’ with a lot of detailed images of leaves and bark. There aren’t many landscapes and there aren’t many animals. And the quotes and thoughts from the author are fine, but they don’t have, for me, any narrative grip – they don’t take me on a journey.
But it is a stylish good-looking book. If I were looking for books to leave in the reception rooms of a big city company then this would definitely be on my list – it looks good and it’s about the environment. And there may be plenty of people who will find that this book is a gateway to a closer relationship with the natural world.
The cover gives a good impression of the quality of the images inside the book, and I like it, 7/10.
The Colour of Silence: the curious truth about nature by Clare Newton is published by Happy London Press (although it doesn’t seem to be on their website yet).
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