“What” you may ask, “has Mark Avery been up to recently?” It does seem like quite a long time since I’ve posted one of his Sunday Book Reviews… Well, to be honest, for his most recent two I’ve not been quite sure of how to summarize them here; they’re quite specific to British culture at a level of subtlety that perplexed even my own Anglophilic self.
For his Sunday Book Review of 8 July, Mark took A Natural Selection: Wildlife Writings from the Cleethorpes Chronicle by Bill Meek as his subject. A collection of the essays of Mr. Meek as published in the local newspaper of Cleethorpes (which, according to the Grimsby Telegraph, ceased publication in 2017), Mark judged it to be both “charming” and a “cracking good read.” Cleethorpes, for those who might not know (as I didn’t until I consulted a map) is a seaside resort town in Northeast Lincolnshire. As one who wrote a regular column for what was once our local newspaper, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for such work and hope I come across a copy of this book for myself one day.
Then in his Sunday Book Review for 15 July, Mark really knocked me for a look be choosing The Knowledge: Every Gun’s Guide to Conservation by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) as his pick. At first I thought he’d either gone mad or was having his reader on; however he does take a serious critical look at this book and dissects it quite thoroughly. There’s clearly a level of significance here that I’m missing at present; however for those in the UK with a greater familiarity of the pertinent players, I have a feeling that Mark’s comments will be rich with meaning.
Links to Mark Avery’s Sunday book reviews appear in The Well-read Naturalist by special arrangement. You can find all of Mark’s past reviews as well as a wide-ranging collection of his other writings on his Standing Up for Nature website. Mark’s opinions regarding the books he reviews are his own.
