Category: BOOK REVIEWS

This book covers some of the same ground as last week’s reviewed book (Silent Earth by Dave Goulson) in that it is invertebrate-based, is on the side of the creepie-crawlies, explains their value to us and sets out some actions that all could take to help to make things right. This book is written in…

This is a very good book by an expert. For those of us whose knowledge and understanding of the natural world is highly slanted towards feathered vertebrates this book helps to put things in perspective. The argument is that we need insects, and if we don’t look after them there will be consequences for us….

I don’t see many Goshawks, and so I was interested to read about film cameraman James Aldred’s experiences filming this species for much of the spring and summer of 2020. Spending so much time with this bird would make it ‘a season unlike any other’ for most of us but it was also a season…

In Japan they have 72 seasons we learn – each of 5-6 days – which is quite a thing to find out. Japan has four main seasons, each divided into six subsections, and each of those has three parts. That’s fascinating, and forms the framework into which Lev Parikian plugs his light-hearted but accurate observations…

I enjoyed this book hugely – and rather more than I thought I might. Was I really interested in one large insect with a rather spooky pattern on its thorax? Well, yes I was as it turns out but this is really a book about perceptions, and that is a fascinating subject. Because of its…

I recently reviewed Jim Crumley’s book, Lakeland Wild, and loved it – see here. And Jim was kind enough to post a comment on that review recently. But publishers are no fools and those nice people in Saraband sent me another couple of Jim’s books, including this one, pointing out that it had recently been…

This is a lovely book about summer, and particularly the summer of 2020, the summer of covid. There is much about wildlife, particularly, but not just, birds, of climate change and how that affects the wildlife around us and of the special constraints and disruptions of lockdowns. There are some great accounts of wildlife observations,…

This is a very interesting read. It is an exploration and an explanation of ecological principles illustrated by UK natural history, much of it through strolls through particular parts of our farmland, forests and uplands. This approach works well, and it is a different type of New Naturalist from most recent additions to this venerable…