Standing up for Nature
Ian Parsons has contributed to this blog on numerous occasions (see here) and this is the third of his books reviewed here (see A Vulture Landscape, October 2020, and A Tree Miscellany, January 2017). I like Ian’s writing as it is clear, easy to understand, has some embedded wit and much embedded knowledge and an…
This is an interesting book which explores the origins of bird names from accentor to Zeledonia. I’m interested in names, and in birds, and birds’ names, and the more I dipped into this book the more and more I liked it. The 400+ pages are packed with information and are well-referenced. I hadn’t appreciated that…
I came across Jim Crumley’s writing only fairly recently but it is a case of a deferred pleasure being very sweet. This 400+ page book is a reworking of his four recent volumes on The Nature of [Season] and is a joy to read. The reworking takes the form of leaving out some whole passages…
This is a brilliant book and I recommend that you buy it and read it – or at least, since it isn’t actually published yet, pre-order it. Despite the fact that it won’t be published until February it will be one of this blog’s books of this year, without doubt. Before telling you why I…
This is a welcome book, dealing, as it does, with an important issue for those of us who are birders. The structure of the book is that the editor produces two introductory chapters on the issue of climate change and the contribution of travel as it applies to birdwatching in its widest sense, and…
This book isn’t really a nature book though there is nature in it. It is a moving and funny autobiography of someone who is interested in wildlife and wild places as well as domestic animals and a whole range of other things. But none of that matters as it is a very good read. The…
This is an account of the history of the Woodland Trust – an organisation which reaches its 50th birthday on 10 October 2022. I used to be quite sniffy about the Woodland Trust, and I think I was right because in the past it neglected the importance of management of woodland and seemed to prioritise…
To say that I enjoyed this book wouldn’t quite be right because it is about man’s inhumanity to other living creatures, but the author, a vet, has a gentle and engaging manner which makes this a very good read. I learned a lot, and most of it was disquieting. The author is keen on wildlife…
I liked this book, which at its best is a mix of James Rebanks and Jake Fiennes at their best. It’s about farming and the changes in farming over three generations, and what might happen in future. I think the author ends up in the right place, more or less, but I wondered whether…
This is not a picture book, although there are plenty of Audubon’s sketches and reproductions of his finished artwork in these pages. This is a book of Audubon’s words, some of which were intended for publication and others which were more private jottings, or accounts meant for the later reading by his family. In our…