Upon discovering the subject of Mark Avery’s most recent Sunday Book Review, I found myself suddenly musing upon one of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer” (also sometimes known as “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer”) for indeed, in this review we have one significant figure of, in this case, modern British natural history and conservation, musing over – here, a new addition to – the embodiment of an older collection of works to which his own owe something of their own foundation.
The book, Uplands and Birds by Sir Ian Newton, OBE, FRS, FRSE, is the most recent addition to the great Collins New Naturalist Library series, which has since its establishment in 1945 with the publication of E.B. Ford’s modern classic work Butterflies supported and encouraged the education of untold numbers of British (as well as other) naturalists as a continually growing library of works treating upon British natural history and conservation that is unequalled anywhere else in the world. Examine the library of any post-war British naturalist worth his or her binoculars, insect net, or vasculum, and I dare say you’ll find more than one volume of this series.
As to this most recent addition to it, Mark pronounces it “monumental,” adding that it is “everything one would expect from one of the UK’s greatest ornithologists; breadth, depth and clarity.” With the main themes of the book being “farming, forestry and grouse shooting” and ending with a chapter in “rewilding,” it is difficult to think of a recently published work that would be more central to Mark’s own bailiwick than this one. I very much encourage you to read his full review to learn more of his assessment.
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.
