A year ago, I think I would likely have given an unmitigated three hips and huzzah for Nick Hayes‘ forthcoming book The Book of Trespass; Crossing the Lines that Divide Us; however having now lived through over two months of the largest city in the U.S. state of birth and life-long residence being the site of ongoing acts of vandalism, trespass, and other assorted un-civil mayhem, many of my opinions about property, civil life, and most particularly personal behavior have undergone a bit of revision.
That’s not to say that I am at all keen on the Enclosure Act that so greatly crippled the commons of England, or the Highland Clearances of Scotland that nearly obliterated an entire culture there. Both of these are topics in which I take great interest indeed – particularly for the effects they had not only on the people of these lands but on the ecosystems as well.
Yet be that all as it may, it was enlightening to discover a few more details about Mr. Hayes’ forthcoming book through Mark’s Sunday Book Review of it. Expected to be published by Bloomsbury U.K. in late August 2020, and with no indication of it being scheduled for U.S. release, Mark’s thoughts about it – and for that matter, his reporting of it’s very existence – are most welcome indeed.
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.
