For those already familiar with the British Wildlife collection published by Bloomsbury, the appearance on book shop shelves of a new volume in the series is more or less an instinctive purchase – if you’ve read previous volumes, you’ll buy the next one as well. However for those who might not yet have discovered this remarkable series, relatively recent addition to the great tradition of British natural history writing that it is, Mark comes to the rescue with his most recent Sunday Book Review essay of Trevor Beebee’s Climate Change and British Wildlife, the sixth volume in the series.
The idea that the planet’s climate is changing is one overwhelmingly accepted by the world’s authorities on the subject; the challenge is how best to communicate the significance and effects of what Mark calls this “portentous subject” to the general public. Overall he seemed quite impressed with how Professor Beebee undertook the task in this book, although he would have liked a bit more information about what we should do to cope with the coming change. I think it’s safe to declare that regardless of the book at hand, so would we all.
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.
