After my initial sorting of the natural history books I regularly receive to be considered for review in The Well-read Naturalist, I find that – aside from field and reference guides – there are essentially three groups into which those I end up reading for the purpose may be classed. The first are those in which the author has a very large amount of admittedly interesting information to convey to the reader; so much information in fact that at times the clarity of what is being presented or the flow of the narrative itself may be somewhat diminished. The second are those that while they may recount an interesting history, biography discovery, or adventure, they are so filled with personal asides and non-contributing tangents that the central point of the book itself is by the end noticeably lessened.
Then there is the third group of books; those absolutely enthralling works where the author has something interesting to convey, has included the right balance of facts and commentary, and has a narrative style that combines intelligence, a bit of wit, and – when appropriate – genuine expressions of emotion (excitement, disappointment, etc.). As might be expected, these last are as much a joy to review as they are to read. Such a book is Charlie Elder’s Few and Far Between; On the Trail of Britain’s Rarest Animals.
Taking as his central theme a personal quest to seek out and see twenty-five of the rarest mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and invertebrates in Great Britain – five of each group – Mr. Elder carries his readers along with him into the far corners of the the Scepter’d Isle, and even into its surrounding waters on occasion, as he recounts his attempts to come face-to-face (or face-to-microscope in one case) with a fascinating assortment of creatures. From an all-but-invisible sea anemone to the long-as-a-bus Basking Shark, the types of animals included in Few and Far Between ranges far more widely than would be expected in a book about searching for rare species. For while there have been a number of books published – many well worth reading – recounting quests to see rare species of birds, butterflies, and what-have-you, Mr. Elder’s book has “something for everyone.”
Interested in cute and cuddly critters? Hazel Dormouse. Remote and elusive? Scottish Wildcat. Boldly colored and visually arresting? Golden Oriole. Genuinely covert and in an undisclosed location? No, he wasn’t looking for Dick Cheney; he was seeking a Pond Frog. And what makes this delightful collection of subjects so much the more enjoyable is that none of them required the author to journey to some far-off exotic location to see; most were reached by automobile or train within less than a day.
Perhaps that’s what made Few and Far Between such a particularly delightful book to me; all of his rare animals were within reach. This doesn’t by any means make them any less rare or challenging to locate; however it does make them far more real to the vast majority of the human population who need to know that they exist in order to support the programs and schemes that enable them to continue living where they do. It’s a simple principle of wildlife conservation – people won’t care about something they don’t know exists, and if they know that it exists just down the road from where they themselves live, so much the better. As a middle-aged husband, the father of a teen-aged daughter, and with far too many domestic responsibilities even to entertain ideas of fannying about around the globe chasing down exotic and elusive forms of life, it was an absolute treat for me to read an entire book devoted to searching for animals that, while indeed rare, are ones that it is (with the exception of the aforementioned Pond Frog) not outside of the resources or abilities of anyone – in Great Britain at least in this case – to see who has a sincere desire to do so.
Mr. Elder is not a scientist of any sort; he is a journalist with a long-standing and strongly-held enthusiasm for wildlife and natural history. He is also a husband and father of two teen-aged daughters; both of whom, as well as his very patient wife, figure into the narrative of Few and Far Between and, along with his superb sense of humor and passion for puns, give it the humanity that make it the thoroughly enjoyable book that it is.
Title: Few and Far Between; On The Trail of Britain’s Rarest Animals
Author: Charlie Elder
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: April 2015
Format: Hardback
Pages: 272 pp.
ISBN: 9781472905185
In accordance with Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255, it is disclosed that the copy of the book read in order to produce this review was provided gratis to the reviewer by the publisher.
