The Nature Reader

Any good books about nature/the coast?

The Clare Leighton book looks lovely. Her etchings are right good.

The chapter in Robert MacFarlane's The Wild Places on Roger Deakin's death ... made me feel sad.

I think it's having a new camera that has had me looking at things like trees more closely than in a while. Been fascinated by the presumably fractal array of growth of twigs out of the bodies of older trees. Presumably so that they can feed from as many directions as possible, like presumably each new twig is there to grow a leaf from to reap chlorophyll from sunlight or whatever. Particularly interesting when you see a wild array of twigs from all parts of what presumably had looked like a dead tree for a couple of years.

I read a book a few years back that a girlfriend had about a guy who had set up a natural tree plantation/wildlife reserve in Canada somewhere. fascinating book, showed the patterns of the way trees grew branches in tandem with each other among other stuff. Would love to read it again

Probably more likely to be autumn divesting said twigs of the leaves that have made them less visible up to now though.

New (non-letterpress) version of Holloway out in May 2013. Print from Holloway now on sale at Stanley Donwood's site (slowlydownward.com).

About two thirds of the way through Tarka the Otter. How was this ever considered a children's book?

Tarka was an odd one. Horrible to read at some points and with a curious ambivalence about otter hunting. The introduction suggests that Williamson hero-worshipped his brother in law who was involved with the local hunt. You never get the sense that the hunt is being celebrated but nor do you get the sense that it is being overtly condemned (although it's difficult to read about an otter being hounded for 10 hours and believe this is a good thing, in any respect).

Is Adrian Bell's Corduroy any good?

Revived for recommendations (Xmas book voucher to spend).

Loved JL Carr's "A Month In The Country", although its possibly more accurately described as rural rather than nature writing. Bemused it was made into a Colin Firth film.

Have bought Olivia Lang's To The River ("gentle, wise and riddling," according to Robert Macfarlane) and Sebald's The Rings of Saturn.

New Richard Mabey: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/15/richard-mabey-unpredictable-power-nature

Second hand book shop purchases:

Fraser Darling - Wild Country
WH Hudson - Hampshire Days
WH Hudson - Birds and Green Places
RM Lockley - The Way to an Island
Henry Williamson - Tales of Moorland & Estuary

Nice(ly written) review:

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/02/reviewed-field-notes-hidden-city-esther-woolfson

Macfarlane in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/15/robert-macfarlane-household-rogue-male

Exhibition/e-book of Macfarlane's Broomway chapter;

http://www.silt-exhibition.com/

Not quite the right thread but it is available in book form:

http://www.campdengallery.co.uk/catalogues/kjackson1.pdf

This was very good. Some of the pictures prompted a strange sense of "This is okay" and then seconds later I'd see them a different light and suddenly it was "Wow, this is fucking wonderful".

New version of Holloway out next week.

There's also been a short run version of Rogue Male with a Stanley Donwood cover.

Anyone read Hoskins' The Making of the English Landscape?

The intro to Hoskins book: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/11/rereading-making-english-landscape?INTCMP=SRCH

http://thequietus.com/articles/12233-holloway-dan-richards-robert-macfarlane

Glugged Holloway like pop. Should probably have savoured it more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/23/making-book-lump-lead-holloway

Currently reading Hoskins' The Making of the English Landscape (at home) and Henry Williamson's Tales of Moorland and Estuary (carry around in my coat pocket and read at opportune moments).

There are signed copies of Holloway in the bookshop in Bicester.

(Just an excuse to bump the thread for recommendations etc).

Enjoying Tales of Moorland and Estuary (and picking out its relationship to Tarka the Otter) in the same way I might enjoy hearing a band's very early demos.

Really enjoying the way taht the areas along the sides of the closest main road have grown wild. There were beds or at least demarcated margins that were presumably set out so taht the council could organise some kind of plant growth. Since they haven't been maintained there are plants growing there that presumably just blew in and are thriving. So there are several types of wildflower,plus some things that are presumably thought of as weeds in other places growing very healthily. But it is refreshing to see plantgrowth and splashes of colour instead of just the grey of urban layout.
Also I find the sight of plants breaking/growing through the concrete/asphalt to be a really healthy sign which I'm aware that other people don't share.
Have noticed taht people are mowing the areas of naturally growing plantlife that appear elsewhere on roadsides around town so hope it isn't inevitable that it happen everywhere.
Leaves me feeling like cultivating dandelions and thistles to see how large I can grow them.

& thoughts about weeds and wildflowers thriving has me thinking about this book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ecological-Imperialism-Biological-Expansion-Environment/dp/0521546184/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1370027206&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=ecological+imperialism
Ecological Imperialism that I read back in 2005 and talks about how every time man expands his territory by travelling to a new continent he tends to take seeds of weeds with him unitentionally which leads to the ground being reformatted. Book mainly focused on European expansion, a lot to the Americas and Antipodes but also talked about earlier migrations by other races to similar places having similar effect.
I thought it was a really interesting book and I'd like to reread it.

Would also like to reread The Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson which I read about the same time & had some very interesting comment early on but then goes into lauding the approach of G.M. technology towards the end. Major shame because the detail he goes into in the early chapters like how thinning the density of a woodland has disproportionately adverse effects since it opens up interior sections to wind damage taht it would have been protected from by the very presence of exterior trees. I think it's also him that was talking about reducing breeding areas for birds was also adversely disproportionate to the expected since choosing a mate is not a simple equation where 1 of each sex = offspring. Since individuals may not be compatible which isn't as anthropomorphic as it might sound.

I need to read more in the area. I also have to read a lot more of the books on other subjects I've already started which are lying around my bed unfinished.

Any recommendations for Norfolk reading?

Macfarlane on the radio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02qnk88

Kathleen Jamie: if I was going to buy one, should it be Findings or Sightlines? (To read on holiday on the Isle of Mull, if this makes any difference).

Anyone read anything good recently?

Still reading Hoskins' The Making of the English Landscape. Hadn't quite realised I'd been reading it for so long. Finding parts of it fascinating and parts a complete slog.

(More "Landscape" than "Nature" but it's convenient to mention it here).

Apparently books by George Ewart Jones and Rowena Farre are next to be published in Little Toller's "Nature Classics" series. Not read anything by either.

Irritated to discover that Mabey's "The Ash and the Beech" is just "Beechcombings" with a different cover/title.

I've just got round to The Old Ways, which I'm not enjoying as much as The Wild Places. Too many meetings with local artists.

Finally reading Jamie's "Findings", which I'd consciously avoided - largely because I hated Farley/Roberts "Edgelands" and was studiously avoiding books by anyone I knew to be a poet. Very readable.

Anyone read Worpole & Orton's "The New English Landscape"?

Or George Ewart Evans' The Pattern Under The Plough, Rowena Farre's A Time From The World or Joseph Conrad's The Mirror of the Sea?

The Mirror of the Sea not really doing it for me (though it is a nice edition).

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/altered-states/on-the-lonely-midnight-trail-of-orkneys-corncrakes/

Hello beautiful thread, I have missed you!

I read Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie, which was amazing (as if I need any more incentive to dream about far-flung islands in the North Atlantic with only cursory ties to Scotland... St Kilda, Rona, Sula Sgeir... even their names are magic.) And not just for that "I'm going places you can't ha ha" travelog but for connecting farflung islands with cancers and whalebones and the brief essay link bits are as necessary as the chapters which make up the bulk of the book. Is Findings as good as this? (I picked up Edgelands in Waterstones yesterday and dropped it quite sharpish on investigating the text.)

I read Macfarlane's The Wild Places recently, and though it was indeed wonderful as his prose always is, halfway through, it was like I suddenly *saw* straight through his schtick and saw the schtick more clearly than the writing, and it kind of spoiled the magic a bit for me, like seeing the strings of puppets. i still think he's great, and I'm going to read Mountains of the Mind after I finish my current book (more on that book later) but I just can't. stop. seeing. the kind of macho-poet schtick and I yen, but I also kinda laugh when I read another chapter that amounts to "I walked 47 miles o'er t' moors and slept in a snowdrift on a Scottish mountain, and recited the poetry of Edward Thomas to keep myself from freezing to death while admiring the sharp, glittering sky, and here is a fact about night vision and an Enlightenment poem about scientists discovering stars then I carried home a piece of gneiss to give to *insert famous nature writer here*..." etc and so on. I do love him, but it is schtick.

NOW.

I give you all warning. If any of you EVER consider reading a book called How England Made The English by Harry Mount, I have but one word of advice: DON'T.

I picked it up for £1.99 in Oxfam and it might actually be the worst book on Natural/Social History I have ever read. Do not take my word for it, if anyone is the slightest bit curious, do not buy it, give me your postal address and I will put it in a bag and mail it to you to get the noxious thing out of my house. It's riddled with inaccuracies and schoolboy errors. The man's political biases show through so transparently that he runs rampant over the most basic of facts (and others, it's like he just doesn't even bother to check: e.g. Gilbert Scott's iconic phone booth... oh, something to do with the John Soane museum, maybe, perhaps the ceilings? (Though the photo credits actually manage to get it right, clearly they weren't written by him.)) I didn't even know who the man was before I started reading, it was an Second Hand Bargain Bookshop Bonanza Impulse Buy, but halfway through, after him not even knowing who built the London sewer system (private investment, clearly! because it is conceptually The Best! And also the most English - this guy has a serious case of the Real Englands, and *please* stop with this "we" in your writing, I resent being forced-teamed into your bigoted worldviews. Africa, by the way? Continent, not country, with a coastline significantly longer than Britain's.) I looked up who he was - Daily Mail writer and former Bullingdon Boy. All I can say is, it shows.

Someone - Mark S? Fizzles? started a thread a long time about things you read in books that cause you to completely lose confidence in the author, and I'm going to revive that thread for this book's worst offences, but at this point I'm basically just hate-reading it to see how many more errata there are. It's not even the political biases, I mean, I grew up reading Country Life, I can ignore political bias if the architectural writing or natural history writing is good, but this guy just doesn't even bother getting basic facts right. Sigh. If you want a book on the social history of the English, read Watching The English by Katie Fox. If you want a good layman's natural history of Britain read The Lie Of The Land by Ian Vince. If you want to know about Great Houses and landscape design and aristocratic pursuits written by someone who is not a total prat, read Mark Girouard. Avoid this book like a DMV laid low by plague.

"Phone booth?" What is this, Superman? Been hanging out with too many comics geeks. Phone box.

Ha, I picked up that Harry Mount book from the library a while ago, and had a similar reaction to yours. I gave up early on, after a completely gratuitous dig at Tony Benn.

I've just read Nick Papadimitriou's "Scarp", which is entertainingly odd, but ultimately rather frustrating. And I'm familiar with the area he's writing about. If I weren't, I'd probably think he'd made it all up. As it is, I'm still not convinced.

haha, OK, oh god, yes. That Tony Benn swipe! Especially at the start of a chapter on the "North-South Divide" which begins "there is a divide between North and South" and then goes on to talk about The South for 30 pages It gets worse and worse from there, e.g. the characterisation of post-industrial land usage as being "pleasant" (only ever in the South of course) and that which is "ugly" (only ever that in the North) e.g. Cornish Engine Houses are picturesque but any industrial building past the Watford Gap is "blight." I almost want to start a thread to go through it line by line and demolish both it and his weird concepts of "Real England" (this man genuinely, honestly believes that the real class struggle in this country is the Middle Class vs the Upper, and of course favours the latter in all things.) but don't want to give him the oxygen of publicity. It swerves repeatedly between perplexing and angry-making on the basis of "that's your opinion and no accounting for tastes" vs "that fact is actually demonstrably just. not. true. The Metropolitan Board of Works, you may have heard of it."

Scarp, yeah, "entertainingly odd" was my reaction to it, but definitely worth reading if you are at all familiar with the terrain. Oooh, I lent my copy of that to someone and should really at some point do the hostage-book-exchange to get it back.

ty for putting in the hate-read & confirming my instincts about Mount - I subbed an article by him a couple of years back, horrible sort of handwavey 'Englishness', new tory twee feeling.

The irony of irony is that "twee" (meaning middle class or - god forbid - working class ideas of prettiness or niceness) is one thing he spends a great portion of the book railing against!

This book! I can't even! I finished it last night and it was one of the hardest things I had ever had to drag mine eyes over.

His whole last chapter on "Why England Doesn't Look Like England" was him ranting about all the things he thinks are ugly in England, with the usual examples of tower blocks, fly-overs, brutalism, "glass boxes", housing estates (snorrrrrre!)

All framed within him bemoaning this vanished breed of "bohemian" (based on this idealised image of Jeffrey Bernard, soho alcoholic slacker, as typified by... a man, possibly homosexual, that he saw in a pub a few times, in Oxford, when he was a student. No, *really*.) And how terrible that this (vaguely patrician, of course, male, of course) bohemian/intellectual/wastrel was this vanished breed that the housing crisis in London and the Southeast has completely destroyed with property prices, oh noes, will no one weep for them. To which, I just wanted to say: HACKNEY. HAVE YOU BEEN THERE. Of course he has not, because, ugh, housing estates and poor people. Working class people priced out of London by the same housing pressure? Oh, fuck 'em. Council housing is the actual worst. Because it's "ugly" and therefore "un-English." Direct quote: "Whatever you think of an unfair land ownership structure, it does make things more beautiful."

Someone actually typed that sentence out, and someone else considered it worthy of publishing it in a book.

I am not normally a violent person, but if this book had a face, I would knee it in the groin and beat it violently (preferably with some "good" English iron) until it was dead, and no court could convict me. It's been a long time since I hated a book this much.

"In June 2013, Bloomsbury published The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson, edited and introduced by Mount"

I shamefully admit I own a couple of books by B.Johnson (either charity finds or ~hilarious gag gifts~ by friends) but to be fair, I've never tried very hard to read them!

Macfarlane on Nan Shepherd:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/27/nan-shepherd-vision-cairngorms-robert-macfarlane