The Nature Reader

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."

See ... that does nothing for me.

Mabey's The Unofficial Countryside:

http://vimeo.com/46869854

Loved most of "The Old Ways". Would definitely make me want to read some Edward Thomas (if I didn't find "The South Country" so unreadable.

I just got done with Thomas Eisner's For Love of Insects, a scientific memoir that goes into beautifully non-technical detail about his experiments in insect chemical adaptations.

I've also taken out a copy of Waterlog, very much looking forward to it.

Waterlog is incredible. It made me want to swim in rivers.

Starting to wish I'd ordered a copy of Holloway.

If you really want Holaweg, look on Thomblr, I'm sure that one of the more obsessive RH fans has PDF'd it by now.

Does Nick Papadimitriou fit in here? "Scarp" looks quite interesting.

Oh god I am reading that RIGHT NOW and I keep wondering if it fits or not, because it's way more psychogeography than nature writing, but there is a lot of nature writing in it.

Either way, I am finding it a fascinating and fantastic book, though deeply strange. But strange in all the ways I love. So I can't decide if I love it or hate it?

I have to confess, I would like to walk the Broomway.

I think it's impossible to read that book and not want to walk The Broomway.

We should have ILX Broomway Walk and Possible Tide Death FAP at the next convenient low tide.

Anyone pick up any of the (Macfarlane-introduced) Collins Nature Library books?

https://twitter.com/LittleToller/status/248803543090352128/photo/1

^ new (old) Clare Leighton.

Reading Macfarlane's The Wild Places and Niall's Fresh Woods, Pastures New. Reading the former when I want to feel awake, the latter when I don't. Niall's book is a curious one: another writer whose initial interactions with nature seem to have been shooting it.

More on the Leighton book:

http://littletoller.co.uk/?p=5599

Kenneth Allsop: http://littletoller.co.uk/2012/10/the-cutting-of-the-cherry/

Macfarlane and Chris Watson 12": http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2012/10/rivertones-2-the-sea-road/

Oh, I did see that. I wanted to listen to the Soundcloud but I was a bit taken aback by the sound of MacFarlane's voice? I think I expected him to sound weather-burred and creaky like an old sea captain telling tales around the fire, but his voice sounds unexpectedly like an over enthusiastic sixth former.

Mostly I got obsessed with the Nick Hayes artwork. Caught By The River always have the most exquisite engravings and illustrations and things.

I keep getting completely sucked into the CBTR site. My friend Amy (who I stayed with in Orkney a few weeks ago) does a column for them. There was some talk she was going to turn her column into a book? When she does, that will be the most amazing thing ever and I will be all over this thread stanning for it.

I am still persisting with the Edward Thomas book, The South Country. It's odd because I really am enjoying it, and I love his writing, but it is very... dense. It's quite slow going. Partly because reading it is so evocative, and I will read a little bit, and the imagery will send me into a little reverie and my mind starts wandering off in memory through landscapes I've encountered that are like the ones he is describing. Which is good and wonderful, and I'm glad that it does that, because it captures the things I like best about country walks and sends me back to happy memories. But it does mean I'm getting through the book very slowly.

Beautiful illustrations, too. By someone called Eric Fitch Daglish. They remind me oddly of the engravings in The House At Green Knowe, the same kind of delicate scratchiness to them.

Amy Liptrot's column should definitely be a book ... particularly loved the one about whale vomit.

Actually, a few of the columns could happily morph into books.

On the last few pages of Ian Niall's Fresh Woods & Pastures New. Another one that featured too much killing/poaching for me to really enjoy and which started to feel like a chore. Have Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter on the bookshelf and have ordered the new (old) Claire Leighton but any other recommendations?

Never did see Holaweg but walk past the printers to work everyday and keep meaning to say hello.

Not quite in the mood for the grimness of Tarka ... recommendations appreciated. Maybe I should try The South Country again ...

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?