The Nature Reader

The Military Orchid is A Grade. Are you reading the Trilogy or just the first one?

Brooke also wrote a book called The Flower in Season ("a book about wild flowers for those who like wild flowers") which is excellent.

Hadn't *planned* on reading beyond The Military Orchid but may well do.

The shift to writing about being in the army, in this, is incredible.

Just started Richard Jefferies' Wild Life In A Southern Country.

See these are coming up from Little Toller:

Adrian Bell - Apple Acre
Ian Niall - Fresh Woods, Pastures New
John Wyatt - The Shining Levels

all of which sound tempting.

Will possibly end up reading them all but any recommendations out of those three?

Sort of wish I hadn't started on Wild Life In A Southern Country - largely because Jefferies is happy to shoot the animals he has just been admiring.

Hello, yes! I am interested in Mabey's Beechcombings. What a delightful book that was. You're right about how crammed full of things it was, the sheer scale of ideas touched upon, how many different areas he took in - that it wasn't just a book about trees, it was a book about history and ecology and anthropology and art and even a bit of etymology thrown in, just for fun. It really was, for me, the kind of paragon of a book which purports to be about only one narrow subject (beeches) but ends up being about the whole panoply of human history instead.

I suppose my particular interest is more about the intersection of humans and nature - my ur-book for this kind of thing is Hoskins' Making of the English Landscape. (Found things like Lie of the Land by Ian Vince diverting recently, as well, even though that is ostensibly about geology, it's actually just about the whole of the landscape.)

Don't particularly like gardening books, though, they tend to be... hmm, a bit blokey. Don't want anything involving the observations men make out of their sheds. I suppose I like these things sweeping, but with good attention to the way that one can go from very fine plant to plant scale and zoom out to the whole panorama. Also no shooting things. At all, ever.

If you like Beechcombings, I'd reckon you'd enjoy any of the Roger Deakin books. Waterlog is probably my favourite though I really enjoyed Notes from Walnut Tree Farm - compiled from his diaries, it's more unguarded and angry.

Four Hedges - mentioned upthread - is un-blokey and about gardens.

Ploughing, slightly grumpily, through Wild Life In A Southern Country. Bought partly for the beautiful cover and partly because it has a forward from Mabey. I resent the shooting though.

Had high hopes for "Sweet Thames, Run Softly" but Gibbings seemed so easily side-tracked as to be annoying.

― djh, Sunday, February 5, 2012 6:01 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So true, didn't quite ruin my enjoyment but came close.

I'm keen to read the Adrian Bell books in this series. I read his (Martin Bell's father fact fans) books a long time ago when they had already long been unfashionable. His novels would fit well in a fictional version of this thread.

Gibbings: had been looking forward to reading about places I'd been (having walked the Thames Path) but it didn't really happen. I thought the impending war would have added something to the writing but it just felt like "there's a war coming so I'll skip the next bit" (which, thinking about it, is fairly rational).

x-post. Am sure fiction on a nature theme can fit on this thread.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/apr/06/kathleen-jamie-life-in-writing

Looking forward to reading this:

http://caughtbytheriver.net/2012/04/the-shining-levels/

(Answell's book vaguely on my radar to read, too).

This makes me realise I've been reading Jefferies' Wild Life In A Southern Country for an age. Determined to finish it, having paid for it, but it's not really doing anything for me.

Are the Robert Macfarlane books any good?

I am finally reading Deakin! The only one I could find was Wildwood but I am enjoying his deconstruction of all the contradictions of Oak Apple Day. There's a kind of sadness to his writing, though. A sense of things which are being lost. Bittersweet.

Claire Leighton's Farmer's Year being repressed this year.

imo, the best nature writing stays well away from descriptions of sunsets, how fresh the air smelled, and how glorious a sight is the bird on the wing. I can (and do) go out into wild places often and I do not need to know all about an author's emotions in the face of nature, whether they are rapturous or just meditative. A very little of that goes a long ways for me. Almost any nature writing that is cast as a 'the diary of a (blank)' I find immediately suspect.

For my tastes, the best nature writing is informative and bears the same relationship to scientific writing that a good narrative history bears to academic history writing. It is less rigorous and comprehensive, but still informed by a love of accuracy and facts.

I can see nature and feel feelings all on my own. I want to add depth to those feelings by adding a greater knowledge and understanding of what I am seeing.

I seem to have ordered a Robert Macfarlane book.

The one about the sunken lanes of Dorest. This one: http://holaweg.com/

Well, he kept coming up in conjunction with Deakin, and there was a brilliant review in the Guardian a few weeks ago, and now I found out that Stanley Donwood has done the illustrations for this one and if you call your book after an Old English word for Holloway, well, it just seemed like it was a conjunction of things I could not resist, that I should explore.

Sounds intriguing.

Haven't read any Macfarlane yet but keep hearing Deakin's name mentioned alongside his (Deakin is probably my favourite writer on nature) but also Edward Thomas's (I can't stand him).

Enjoyed John Wyatt's "The Shining Levels" - remarkably un-twee for a book that involves rescuing a roe deer. Lovely illustrations from Norman Ackroyd, too.

Loved the Macfarlane piece in the Granta collection mentioned in the second post of this thread. The first Macfarlane piece I've consciously read (I may have read pieces without thinking "it's Macfarlane"). More "rural writing" than "nature writing" but a beautiful piece nevertheless.

Also finished the recently repressed Adrian Bell. Started off well but the writing style seemed to change and it became less interesting.

just received the new macfarlane and the new kathleen jamie in the post

Are they good?

New series to tempt us:

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/pages/searchresultstitles.aspx?sdt=1&page=2&objaid=11226

Currently reading Neil Ansell's "Deep Country - Five Years In The Welsh Hills". Found the first quarter really enjoyable in a jaunty, light-read sort of way but then suddenly lost interest. That might be me rather than the book, though.

Have also got the "Nature Tales: Encounters with Britain's Wildlife" compilation on the go - I've been carrying it round in my work bag and read it when people are late for appointments. Was hoping to be inspired to find some new (to me) writers. Have just got to an extract from Edward Thomas' "The South Country". Find him unreadable.

I started the Macfarlane (The Old Ways, not Holaweg, which is too hand-printed and delicate and beautiful to take out of the house) while on a train journey (where I forgot to bring along the book I was currently reading - the Tom Fort book about the A303 - really rather confusing as they often cover the same ground, quite literally) and so far am finding him enjoyable.

But I think that I really rather like "rural writing" rather than "nature writing" per se. That I like nature writing when put in the context of other things, social histories and the like, rather than just on its own and stripped of context.

Several of the books I've read recently have been stanning for Edward Thomas, and I am curious, but it seems that the reactions on this thread are not positive, so maybe I should avoid him?

To be fair, I think it is just me saying I'm not getting anywhere with Edward Thomas ... repeatedly. The only other book I've abandoned, without finishing, recently is Farley & Robert's "Edgelands".

Is "Holaweg" a thing of wonder?

It is absolutely beautiful to look at, the etchings of the tree tunnels are utterly lovely - I sometimes wish Donwood would abandon being an album cover designer and just go full time nature illustrator but I don't imagine there's any money in that. Haven't done more than skim through as it's hand printed and I'm afraid of breaking the spine but it looks great and it is a none-more-WCC subject.

A phone conversation with a friend. He admitted he'd gone swimming in a fuck-fuck-fuck-freezing lido because he was inspired by Deakin.

I wish I were more into swimming. Some of those swimming holes looked lush. I must admit I was tempted by the one at Porthtowan. I'm just not much cop at swimming.

Thomas's prose always used to be dismissed as hackwork (he called it that himself iirc) - a real burden that got in the way of the poetry. Seems like it's been reclaimed as his reputation has ballooned over the last few years but I'm still a bit suspicious. I read a bit back in the day in the old penguin Selected Poems and Prose, but it didn't stick with me. (a great poet though, obvs).

Not much of a reader of natural history, nature writing, but I like T H White – England have my Bones, The Goshawk.

I do not like poetry at all, so perhaps I should try the hackwork.

Did anyone watch Dr Alice Roberts' new series Wild Swimming, talking *a lot* about Roger Deakin's Waterlog? Not necessarily my kind of thing, but kind of relaxing non-brainwork TV watching.

The Ansell book picked up again towards the end.

This sounds intriguing (although poets writing such things gives me the fear):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/17/otter-country-miriam-darlington-review?INTCMP=SRCH

Alec Finlay and Ken Cockburn's The Road North is a fascinating and beautiful exploration of various Scottish places, inspired by Basho's The Road North. Combination of prose, minimalist poems (haiku, renga, Cagean mesostics etc), and photos, with the occasional bit of music or video. There are contributions from their companions at various stages: poets, artists, walkers, musicians, gardeners etc. A bit different to some of the new nature writing in that the focus is on artistic interventions in the environment rather than a search for wilderness. An inspiring project, one that encourages an active engagement with nature. Loads of fantastic stuff here: a visit to folk singer Anne Briggs's island home, a celebration of the huts at Carbeth, and a consideration of Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta from the pov of someone who knows it as the family home, Stonypath...

http://the-road-north.blogspot.co.uk/

Robert Macfalane actually made me do a little cry on the bus this morning. I think I'm going to have to develop a crush on him. Like every other Guardian-reading fanboy in the world. Sigh.

Which bit/part of book?

It was in The Old Ways (the book about paths and walking.) His grandfather died while he was writing the book, so he decided as a memorial to him, to walk to his funeral in Scotland, over the Cairngorms, through a route his grandfather had known and loved. And it was just the way that he interwove descriptions of the geology and the flora and fauna of the mountains interspersed with stories of his grandfather - who had used his position of being a diplomat to explore and walk the mountain ranges of the world. (And indeed it was walks in Scotland with his grandfather that inspired Macfarlane's love of walking and inspired his first book, about mountains.) And talking about how he had retired in the Cairngorms because he loved mountains so much, but then describing his slow physical and mental decline in metaphor by how the range of his hikes shrank smaller and closer to home, and finally stopped altogether, until all he had was the reported rambles of his grandchildren. And it was just so beautiful and poignant and I'm not giving due credit to the dignity of his prose, but just... BAAAAWWWWW.

I have succumbed and ordered some Edward Thomas.

But I seriously do not want this Robert Macfarlane book to ever end. It feels like one of those books I might read, and then go right back to the beginning and read over again.

Good luck with the Thomas - perhaps you will like it?

Have just bought The Old Ways as holiday reading.

I kinda reached the critical mass of reading Thomas quotes in 3 books I have read recently, and just decided "hey actually this guy is pretty good" so I might as well give him a try.

Really hope you like The Old Ways. (Though everyone who reads it seems to end up wanting to go on strange walks along the Broomway, to the Chanctonbury Rings, etc. etc.)

(It was the essays I bought, though, not the poetry. Hope this wasn't a mistake.)

Still got The Old Ways on my shelf unread, really looking forward to starting it now :)

I should just start a thread of outright Robert Macfarlane love.

Just noticed that Richard Skelton/Autumn Richardson (The "classical" music you buy from Boomkat (2010): a thread to discuss Sylvain Chauveau, Johann Johannsson, Peter Broderick, Olafur Arnalds and others) get a mention in The Old Ways.

Edward Thomas is my man!

"And so it is alone and for themselves that the beeches rise up in carven living stone and expand in a green heaven for the song of the woodwren, pouring out pearls like water."

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.