Is nature beautiful or is it useful? Should we protect nature for its own sake or for our own sakes? Is nature priceless or can it have a value put on it? The answer to these questions can all be ‘Yes to both’ but we don’t treat the natural world as though we would say…
Category: BOOK REVIEWS
Sunday book review – Horus the Peregrine Falcon by John Miles
This book is aimed at children but I’m just a big kid so I enjoyed it too. Horus, a young Peregrine, lives in London and visits many well-known London landmarks. The point is made that he may be safer in the city than if he ventured onto a grouse moor (which did make me smile)….
Sunday book review – Ten Million Aliens by Simon Barnes
If you are a fan of Simon Barnes then you will love this book – it is essence of Barnes. If you love nature then you will probably love this book – it is essential reading for nature lovers. Quirky views, beautifully written, and dispensing fascinating facts every few sentences, this is a thoughtful celebration…
Sunday book review – Penguins – close encounters by David Tipling
Did you like the John Lewis advert? That is what Christmas is all about after all – which retailer has the best advert to get you spending your money. Which of the world’s 17 species of penguin was it? I’ve never seen a penguin in the wild, only a few in zoos, but then very…
Sunday book review – Claxton by Mark Cocker
This is a lovely book. It has appeared in lots of lists of nature books of the year over the last few weeks as it was published in 2014, but I’ve only just been reading it over Christmas and the New Year and so, for me, it is a book of 2015. Day by day…
Books of the year
I seem to have reviewed 32 books on this site in 2014. They are all listed below. Reviewing books is a personal affair. I try not to say that books are good or bad – only that I like them or not. From that, you’ll have to make your own minds up. And I know…
Sunday book review – My Year with Hares by Martin Hayward Smith
This book is lovely. There are lots of photographs, very good photographs, the author is a professional cameraman and photographer, and some pretty good words. It’s the story of a year spent looking at Brown Hares in North Norfolk, in the part of the world that birders and people with boats, both drive through quickly,…
Sunday book review – The Book of 365 by Hugh Brazier and Jan McCann
This book is not all about nature but there is quite a lot of nature dispersed through its pages, which is to be expected since one of its authors is a former Guest Blogger here. And so, it comes as no great surprise, but a delight nonetheless, to find mentions of Passenger Pigeons, California Condors…
Sunday book review – John Muir by Mary Colwell
This year is the centenary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and also of the death of John Muir – ‘the Scotsman who saved America’s wild places’. John Muir was born in Dunbar in 1838 and died in California in 1914 – in between he fell in love with the USA’s wildlife and wild…
Sunday book review – 100 Things that Caught My Eye by Chris Packham
I’ve spent some time with Chris Packham this year. We both talked at the Hampshire Ornithological Society AGM on my birthday in March, and chatted about Hen Harriers on that day and wound each other up on the subject. We stood together as part of the ‘Sodden 570’ on Hen Harrier Day in the Peak…