This book, out of 47 I reviewed in 2023, was one of two titles I chose as my wildlife book of the year – I recommend it highly. You can buy this book from Bookshop.org and I have set up a booklist to make that easy through this link https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/MarkAvery Disclosure: I am an affiliate…
Category: BOOK REVIEWS
Sunday book review – Across a Waking Land by Roger Morgan-Grenville
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This is the tale of an almost 1000-mile walk from the southern edge of the New Forest to Cape Wrath by a fit 62-year-old who encounters landscapes, people and wildlife on his journey of 51 walking days. It’s a good read and I enjoyed it very much. Quite honestly, the interactions with people, fellow walkers,…
Sunday book review – Reconnection by Miles Richardson
This is a book of three parts: our broken relationship with nature; the benefits of connecting with nature; and how to fix things. Each is an interesting look at the issues and the author brings a lot of his own thoughts and experiences into the book, as well as the studies and evidence from academia….
Bank Holiday Monday book review – Big Bat Year by Nils Bouillard
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Stories of ‘Big Years’ where the storyteller tries to see as many [some aspect of wildlife] as possible in [a defined area] in a year, usually a calendar year, are great fun. You do have to question the carbon emissions but if you can put them to the back of your mind then accounts of…
Bank Holiday Monday book review – An Atlas of Endangered Species by Megan McCubbin
We are taken to conservation projects intent on saving endangered species – 10 from the northern and and nine from the southern hemispheres (18 animals and one plant). Which 19 would you have picked? We meet those who are engaged in preventing these species from being driven to extinction and hear their stories of success…
Sunday book review – The Green Woodpecker by Gerard Gorman
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I like Green Woodpeckers, I always have, and was keen to find out more about them from the pen (keyboard I guess) of an acknowledged world woodpecker expert (see here for a review of the same author’s Wryneck). The book comprises 17 chapters which run from the taxonomy of the species through its anatomy, morphology,…
Sunday book review – The Book of Wilding by Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell
This is the bible for rewilders, and a solid tome it is too. The authors are, of course, the very best people in the UK to write such a book as they have ‘done it’ themselves at their estate of Knepp in Sussex. Knepp is a fantastic wildlife success story with rewilded habitats producing impressive…
Sunday book review – Beastly by Keggie Carew
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This book is a series of stories which explore our relationship with animals. But what a series of stories! From a Barn Owl perching on someone’s head to the furore about letting a few White-tailed Eagles go on the Isle of Wight, by way of the DMZ between the Koreas, Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain,…
Sunday book review – Ghosts in the Hedgerow by Tom Moorhouse
Hedgehogs have declined very dramatically in numbers – to the point of being unknown, now, in many places where they snuffled in living memory. The declines in Hedgehog populations are of a similar scale to many of our largest declines in bird populations. It’s a bit surprising that even more hasn’t been made of the…
Sunday book review – The Biodiversity Gardener by Paul Sterry
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Paul Sterry is no stranger to the readers of this blog, having written a string of guest blogs here over the years. He is a prolific author and photographer. This book describes the success of action, and well-informed inaction, in creating a wildlife refuge. Sterry’s half-acre garden sounds like a veritable oasis embedded in the…