To say I was excited to see a copy of Neha Sinha’s recently published Wild and Wilful, Tales of 15 Iconic Indian Species arrive on my desk from HarperCollins India would be an understatement. I have followed Ms. Sinha’s social media postings about India’s natural history for some time and I have learned a remarkable amount from her about both India’s wildlife and the conservation efforts undertaken on the behalf of it.
So when I discovered that she had recently published a collection of essays that take up a the stories and statuses of many of India’s most well-known and charismatic species – as well as a few that aren’t so well-known – I was very much hoping for the opportunity to read it for review. However when I learned that it was not being distributed in either the U.S. or the U.K., my hopes for ever doing so fell.
Fortunately, against the odds, a copy has found its way to me, and I can happily report that I have been repeatedly losing myself in Ms. Sinha’s rich, sometimes playful, and always powerfully earnest tales of her subjects, as well as being very much enlightened by her explanations and analyses of the socio-cultural challenges of wildlife conservation in India.
A note for those seeking a copy for themselves: while the book is not officially distributed in either the U.S. or the U.K., it is being sold – at an admittedly through a re-seller on Amazon, as well as being listed but “out of stock” at Blackwell’s. Both links below direct accordingly. Amazon also offers it in a electronic form via their Kindle format, which, although I rarely advocate electronic books, might be the easiest option available at this time for readers outside of India.
Also, for my North American readers who may be wondering, the spelling “wilful” is not a typographical error; it is a common one in dialects of English used outside of North America.
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