The challenge with life lately (say, over the past two years, give or take) is that it has been throwing me so many curve balls – or to use the British vernacular, bowling me so many googlies – that it’s been all I can do just to keep the Aspidistra flying. And one of the many ways I’ve let it fall over this time has been my neglect of proper correspondence with Mark Avery.
I realized this recently when out of the blue, I received a note from him, wishing my family and I well during this present catastrophe we are all collectively facing. Needless to say, I was touched – and a little embarrassed. After all, his mandated governmental confinement in Great Britain is far more draconian than mine here in Oregon (which itself is well and sufficiently bothersome for my taste as it is). Yet here he was, sending good wishes to us, and I haven’t even been thoughtful enough to keep you all updated on his own book reviewing – book reviewing that, given his vantage point in the UK, allows him access to new works that often just don’t seem to make it across the pond to my post box (some publishers can be a bit picky about the whole UK – US division; two countries divided by a common language and all that…).
Thoroughly contrite at my negligence, and with humble apologies to the very fine chap that he indeed is, I am thus re-doubling my efforts (which would, if my calculations are correct, make them four times as great) to ensure that Mark’s most recent book reviews are regularly relayed to my own readers for the general improvement of visibility for interesting books about nature and natural history being published on both sides of the Atlantic.
His most recent review takes up Stephen Moss‘ The Accidental Countryside; Hidden Havens for Britain’s Wildlife. In this just published work from Guardian Faber Books, Mr. Moss takes his readers along on a “journey of discovery through Britain, in search of the hidden corners where wildlife survives against the odds.” Mark seems to have enjoyed the work, commenting upon it in reference to his (and all his country-fellows’) present state of existence, “Lockdown would be much less bearable were it not for wildlife, and particularly birds” – a sentiment with which I am confident we can all very much agree.
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.
