This is a reprint of the classic 1956 book by David Lack but, as in the updated version of his Life of the Robin, this is updated whilst maintaining the original text. David Lack’s study of Swifts took place in the tower of the Oxford University Museum and has continued to this day. Lack’s…
Category: BOOK REVIEWS
Book review – Eagle Country by Sean Lysaght
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Reviewed by Ian Carter Seán Lysaght is a poet and writer and he brings his poet’s eye for observation to this exploration of his home country of Mayo and the wider west coast of Ireland. Spurred on by an interest in eagles and the tragic history of the two species in Ireland he trawls the…
Book review – Mrs Pankhurt’s Purple Feather by Tessa Boase
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This is a very interesting book which I recommend highly as a challenging read. The author takes us back over a century to Victorian and Edwardian London where in nasty little workshops the women working in the millinery trade produced the hats to adorn the heads of rich women – many of these hats…
Bank Holiday Monday book review: Whittled Away: Ireland’s vanishing nature, by Pádraic Fogarty
Reviewed by Ian Carter The title of this book is taken from an Irish Government report dating back to 1969 raising concerns that Ireland’s natural heritage is being gradually ‘whittled away’. The report suggests, in the understated way of the age, that this ‘could represent a serious loss to the nation’. You could imagine much…
Bank Holiday Monday book review – Beyond Spring by Matthew Oates
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Reviewed by Ian Carter Having read his previous book describing a lifetime of watching, studying and obsessing about butterflies I was looking forward to this one. Thankfully, it shares many similarities, not least the in-depth knowledge, warmth and humour in the writing – it’s not often you catch yourself laughing out loud at a natural…
Bank Holiday Monday book review – How to Build Houses and Save the Countryside by Shaun Spiers
This book is written by a former MEP, a former boss of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the current Director of the think-tank Green Alliance. Shaun Spiers has been knocking around the policy and political world for a good few years and he’s no fool (no fool at all) and so his views,…
Sunday book review – The Lynx and Us by David Hetherington and Laurent Geslin
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I expected this book to be a great visual treat considering the imprint from which it comes, and it is, but it is also a very interesting read. You can’t go far wrong with photos of cats – the internet is full of them – but these images of wild European Lynx are superb. …
Sunday book review – The Wonderful Mr Willughby by Tim Birkhead
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Reviewed by Ian Carter This is a book I probably wouldn’t have read had I not been asked to review it. The name Willughby was not a familiar one – other than a vague notion that he, and his close associate John Ray, had something to do with birds a very long time ago….
Sunday book review – Curlew Moon by Mary Colwell
Yesterday was World Curlew Day. Everybody likes Curlews these days. GWCT and Curlew Country want your money to save the Curlew, BTO want your money to save the Curlew and RSPB is spending over a million pounds over five years on Curlews but isn’t gagging for your money it seems! Wow! The author of Curlew…
Sunday book review – The Ascent of Birds by John Reilly
This is a book for the intelligent and inquisitive birder – which may limit its reach somewhat – but also for students of evolutionary biology and all those who have wondered at how we have ended up, in any part of the world, with the mix of species we see today. It is a…