Standing up for Nature
I’m glad I read this book, and I’ve never read one quite like it. It’s an exploration of landscapes – how we portray them and how we feel about them. It ranges widely from the lunar landscape via Antarctica to East Anglia and from urban to rural. The author is a landscape architect (and I…
Any book which starts with a quote from Audrey Hepburn is off to a good start with me. She said that to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. No wonder there are now so many areas of artificial turf and gravel. But this book is an antidote to that as a ‘practical and…
Louise Gray’s previous book, The Ethical Carnivore was 5th in my books of the year for 2016 (see review here), and this follow-up, also on food, is a contender for a top-10 listing this year, I reckon. Eating fruit and vegetables doesn’t quite have the moral jeopardy attached to it that surrounds eating an animal…
Colin Rees is a life-long natural scientist and has worked as an environment/biodiversity specialist for international organizations in over 80 countries. He is co-author of Birds of a Feather: Seasonal Changes on Both Sides of the Atlantic (reviewed here) and author of A History of Cornish Ornithology: the path to conservation and Nature’s Calendar: a year in the life…
An attractive book of relatively few words but a great many excellent images. The photographs are wonderful and portray the landscapes, wildlife and built environment of our oldest National Park. There are many good portraits of birds here, and I enjoyed them. The butterflies were even better and the plants better still. But the landscapes…
This is David Elias’s first book and it is a cracker. The name might ring a bell with readers of this blog as he wrote a guest blog here almost five years ago (Dead from the neck down). This is a thoughtful, knowledgeable and loving account of upland Wales, its wildlife and its land use….
I have reviewed several of Stephen Moss’s books here (Tweet of the Day (with Brett Westwood) 2014; Natural Histories (with Brett Westwood) 2015; Wild Kingdom, 2016; The Twelve Birds of Christmas, 2019; The Accidental Countryside, 2020; The Swallow, 2021; Skylarks with Rosie, 2021) and enjoyed them all. They vary in depth and scope but are…
Kerrie is a Devon-based artist and writer who likes to dabble in a variety of crafts. Before becoming self-employed she was an ecologist and prior to that she worked as an environmental educator with the Dorset Wildlife Trust. She contributed to the BTO’s Red Sixty Seven book and has written for Penguin, discussing the loss of biodiversity…
Roy Dennis is a senior and eminent wildlife conservationist with a lovely voice and plenty of things to say. He once worked for the RSPB as Highland Officer and before that he was the director of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory. For many, Roy is best known for his role in promoting reintroductions of mammals…
This book will sit snugly in many National Trust shops. It takes you through the seasons and points you towards things you should see, hear, smell and feel. Almost the first thing to look for is your first Brimstone butterfly – I’ve seen a few in the last 10 days so it must be early…