I sometimes wonder how many Guardian journalists have been for a walk in the countryside (without ear pods) in the last week. I guess the Guardian’s ignorant aloofness is better than the Telegraph’s ignorant familiarity although it’s a close run thing. At least the Guardian has a daily, tiny but valuable, account of some well-observed aspect of nature or farming as a redeeming feature.
This book is a selection of these 250-word marvels written from places across the UK by a wide variety of writers.
I have my favourite Country Diary writers, and so will you, but we’ll both find things to like and others to love in this compendium of ‘the best’ 10% of the published pieces from 2018-24. And here we can escape the front page stories of Trump, Ghaza, the Budget and more for a few moments.
The cover? Nice colours, but it all looks a bit bleak to me. I’d give it 6/10.
Under the Changing Skies: the best of the Guardian’s Country Diary 2018-24 is published by Guardian Faber.
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Agree with you about the ear pods. What is the modern refusal to experience reality without some sort of comfort blanket for your ears? Especially nature which should be experienced (at least part of the time) without human commentary or noise.
in fact, make that almost all the time
Couldn’t believe my eyes when a horse and rider came along our rural lane and she was glued to her smartphone.