Our dear Dr. Avery has been a very busy chap indeed this past week. Apparently, he’s been reading from sun-up to sun-down each day, and as a result has posted reviews of three newly published books for his Sunday Book Review – make that “Reviews” – this week.
First, in order of posting at least, is his review of Wild Mull; A Natural History of the Island and its People by Stephen Littlewood Martin Jones. I’ve long had a desire to visit Mull, having heard much about it, particularly as of late, so I’m delighted Mark has brought this new book from Pelagic Publishing to my – as well as all his other readers’ attention.
Next, Mark reviewed Martin Painter’s new Birding in an Age of Extinction from Whittles Publishing. Ordinarily, global level birding memoirs aren’t of much interest to me, but I was very glad to discover that this was not the usual “went here, saw this, went somewhere else…” collection but that Mr. Painter actually faces up to the contradictions of international level birding in an age of species loss and anthropogenic climate change.
And finally, Mark shared his thoughts about Richard Pope’s Flight from Grace; A Cultural History of Humans and Birds, published in the early spring of this year by McGill-Queens University Press. A lavishly illustrated examination of how our ancestors have interpreted and depicted birds, and how this has changed over the centuries, this book was not one – given the fact that it’s not from a publisher from which I commonly receive communications – of which I would likely ever heard had not Mark then the time to write about it. However he having done so, I’ve very curious to enquire further into it.
Links to Dr. 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 entirely his own.
