Given that so many of Mark Avery’s recent book reviews have been about books that are also in my own notebook as likely subjects for review – or being from UK publishing houses, in my notebook for trying to secure copies for review – I’m beginning to wonder if he was perhaps stealthily peering over my shoulder at last year’s BirdFair when I first noticed a fair number of them on publishers’ display stands there. The truth, of course, is that, in addition to his good taste in books, he is located in Great Britain – the veritable Xanadu of natural history publishing – where such books are easily obtained and publishers aren’t prevented from posting books across the sea to ernest reviewers located out here in the far distant lands beyond even the former British colonies.
But I digress…
Mark’s most recent Sunday Book Review has him stroling down by the Cornish sea-side (in his imagination, of course), having a look at the superb rock pools to be found there containing many fascinating forms of life – each with its own story – being guided by Cornwall’s own rock pooler par excellence: Heather Buttivant. The book is, naturally, Ms. Buttivant’s Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides, just released in a new paperback edition this year from September Publishing. I think Mark quite enjoyed his imaginary stroll, as he notes “I must go down to the sea again, and I’d take this book with me.”
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.
