The Nature Reader

Oh sod it - I mean Landings...!

Strangely, I love the "Landings" album but have never read the accompanying book (although I have it), for some reason.

Enjoyed "Beyond The Fell Wall" and have been reading his poetry retrospective, "The Pale Ladder". Both are the kind of books you need to read in small doses - savour words and re-read paragraphs - rather than settle down for a long session.

I can't think what but I'm sure I've read something that put me off the Lewis-Stempel book. (If it wouldn't lesson anyone's enjoyment of the book) Having just read your review on Amazon and a review in the Guardian, what's his issue with Monbiot and how does he explain having hunted foxes and having sabbed fox hunts?

I was about to say I've never been convinced by Skelton's prose (if that's what it is) but I wonder if it was just that I'd had my Skelton fill and stopped reading and listening around the same time. Glancing at Landings, I can still feel the latent power in it. It vibrates and resonates in the same way as his music.

Nice thing on Annie Dillard in the latest LARB: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/thats-inspiration-rereading-annie-dillard/

I would say I'm far more moved by Skelton's recordings than his writing (though can find time for both).

Just pre-ordered RM Lockley's Dream Island in a moment of weakness (Had intended to read a pile of books before I bought anything else).

http://wainwrightprize.com/2016/06/30/the-wainwright-prize-2016-shortlist-revealed/

Common Ground, Rob Cowen (Windmill)

The Outrun, Amy Liptrot (Canongate)

Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane (Penguin)

The Moth Snowstorm, Michael McCarthy (John Murray)

The Fish Ladder, Katharine Norbury (Bloomsbury)

The Shepherd’s Life, James Rebanks (Penguin)

Now in its third year, the prize awards £5,000 annually to the work that best reflects renowned nature writer Alfred Wainwright’s core values of celebrating the great British outdoors.

This year’s shortlist draws a spotlight on the continued resurgence of nature and travel writing in the UK and the staggering breadth of personal issues explored through the genre.

Memoir features strongly, with Amy Liptrot’s experience of alcoholism and recovery explored through her wild Orkney homeland (The Outrun), Rob Cowen’s journey into parenthood set within his exploration of a square-mile of Yorkshire woodland (Common Ground), Katharine Norbury’s life spent walking Britain’s glittering rivers (The Fish Ladder), James Rebank’s account of life as a shepherd in the Lake District (A Shepherd’s Life), and Michael McCarthy’s moving memoir of childhood trauma that offers a rallying cry for protecting our environment (The Moth Snowstorm). Meanwhile, Robert Macfarlane rounds off the shortlist, earning his second shortlisting with his meditation on words and landscape (Landmarks).

http://www.commonground.org.uk/leaf/#

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/05/wainwright-prize-goes-to-amy-liptrots-searingly-honest-the-outrun

Did anyone read Monbiot's "How Did We Get into This Mess? : Politics, Equality, Nature"?

Hasn't seemed as prominent as "Feral"

Ned Trifle - have you seen there's a newly published Claire Leighton, "Country Matters"?

Richard Jefferies Society writing prize 2016:

Nominations for the 2016 award are now closed. The winner will be selected in May and announced on 3 June 2017. The long list under consideration is:

•The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
•Landskipping by Anna Pavord
•The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stempel
•Wild Kingdom by Stephen Moss.
•A Sky Full of Birds by Matt Merritt
•Rivers Run by Kevin Parr
•The Art of Falconry by Patrick Morel
•The Tree Climber’s Guide by Jack Cooke
•Nightingales in November by Mike Dilger
•Walking Through Spring by Graham Hoyland
•Ladders to Heaven by Mike Shanahan
•Six Facets of Light by Ann Wroe
•Island Home by Tim Winton
•The Remedies by Katharine Towers
•How to Read Water by Tristan Gooley
•The Wood for the Trees by Richard Fortey

Leighton's "Country Matters" not really doing it for me (though I loved "Four Hedges").

Quite enjoyed Horatio Clare's "Orison for a Curlew", about his search to see a slender-billed curlew ... particularly as he notes on the first page that he doesn't see one and it is probably extinct.

I stall on Gilbert White's "The Natural History of Selborne" but have picked it up again - I hadn't realised until flicking back through this thread that I started it over a year ago.

Not strictly a "nature" book but a combination of writing about an allotment and a memoir about growing up in the foster system but Allan Jenkins' Plot 29 is well worth a read.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/31/plot-29-a-memoir-by-allan-jenkins-review

Not strictly a book at all, but a lovely documentary on BBC2 about Helen Macdonald getting and training a new goshawk: Natural World, 2017-2018: 7. H is for Hawk: A New Chapter: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09b68wy

It treads some of the same fine, slightly mawkish, lines as the book but that's OK.

Any "river" book recommendations? It will be for a present for someone who potters in a canoe.

Weirdly, I haven't read any of this year's Wainwright Book Prize shortlist.

The Last Wilderness by Neil Ansell (Tinder Press)

Hidden Nature by Alys Fowler (Hodder & Stoughton)

Outskirts by John Grindrod (Sceptre)

The Dun Cow Rib by John Lister-Kaye (Canongate)

The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (Hamish Hamilton)

The Seabird’s Cry by Adam Nicolson (William Collins, HarperCollins)

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (Michael Joseph)

This is probably a bit shameless, but I've been writing this on and off for a few years; I stopped writing for various reasons (work, purpose) but put something up today:

https://somesmallcorner.co.uk/

Any nature book recommendations for pre-school children?

According to their Twitter account, a distributor handling Little Toller's books has gone into administration, losing them fairly horrendous amounts of money.

I think they'd appreciate purchases from their website, right now:

https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/

Anyone read Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life? (Sheldrake appears in Robert Macfarlane's Underlands.)

I'm a couple of chapters in. It's fascinating. Been reading his dad's The Science Delusion too, tangentially

Thanks or something. The bits in Underland are fascinating too - was intrigued if this translated into a good book of his own. Will buy!

Had a scan through this thread and wondered ... how did I actually find the time to do anything else?

"Amy Liptrot's column should definitely be a book" made me laugh, though.