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Everybody Needs Beauty: In Search of the Nature Cure
by Samantha Walton'Beautifully written, intimate and intellectually fascinating' Nathan Filer'Impeccably researched . . . A call to us all to find a place within the simplicity and complexity of nature' Lara Maiklem, bestselling author of Mudlarking'Essential reading for our trammelled, troubled times' David FarrierEverybody is talking about the healing properties of nature. Hospitals are being retrofitted with gardens, and forests reimagined as wellbeing centres. On the Shetland Islands, it is possible to walk into a doctor's surgery with anxiety or depression, and walk out with a prescription for nature.Where has this come from, and what does 'going to nature' mean? Where is it – at the end of a garden, beyond the tarmac fringes of a city, at the summit of a mountain? Drawing on history, science, literature and art, Samantha Walton shows that the nature cure has deep roots – but, as we face an unprecedented crisis of mental health, social injustice and environmental devastation, the search for it is more urgent now than ever.Everybody Needs Beauty engages seriously with the connection between nature and health, while scrutinising the harmful trends of a wellness industry that seeks to exploit our relationship with the natural world. In doing so, this book explores how the nature cure might lead us towards a more just and radical way of life: a real means of recovery, for people, society and nature.
A Field Guide to Larking
by Lara MaiklemA Field Guide to Larking is a practical, interactive and inspiring guide to 'larking' from the bestselling author of Mudlarking. To lark is to get out and about, to explore the world around us and to discover the little treasures hiding in plain sight. We think, of course, of mudlarking but there is also beachlarking, fieldlarking or even simply exploring your own home with fresh eyes. In this beautiful field guide, Lara teaches us how to lark for ourselves. There are maps and charts, tips and lists, and colour illustrations throughout to help identify finds. From tide tables for mudlarkers to a flint guide for fieldlarkers, this book is richly informative and yet small enough to pop in a pocket. Like a journal it invites you to interact – to make notes and record finds along the way.If Lara Maiklem's first book was a glimpse into a hidden world, with this field guide she shows us how we can discover it for ourselves.
In Kiltumper: A Year in an Irish Garden
by Niall Williams Christine Breen'I read it with enormous pleasure ... Heartbreaking, uplifting ... A delight' TIM PEARS'I loved their two voices, truthful and gentle and generous' GEORGINA HARDING'Magical ... Arresting ... Read it and be restored to yourself' IRISH CENTRAL ____________________Thirty-four years ago, when they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine's ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the land itself threatened by the arrival of turbines just one farm over, Niall and Christine decided to document a year of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.
The Book of Vanishing Species: Illustrated Lives
by Beatrice Forshall__________________Our Earth is more beautiful and more diverse than we can possibly conceive of.The Book of Vanishing Species is a stunning homage to the planet's most mysterious, bizarre and wondrous creatures and plants. Their stories are captivating, from the eyeless and tiny dragonlike olm to the hawksbill turtle, whose gender will be determined by the temperature of the sand it is born in. These species may have survived for hundreds of thousands of years by cleverly adapting to their environments, but their future remains far from certain. The book brings to life red cranes as they dance and bow for the sheer joy of movement, trees that breathe out a haze of misty atmosphere for insects that only feast on one kind of flower, a deep-ocean snail quietly building its shell from iron... and each one of them is illuminated with an exquisite illustration. As you turn the pages, there emerges a network of life that stretches across and around the planet in a dazzling web of existence.This is both a love letter to life on Earth, and an urgent summons to protect what is precious and lovely in this world.
52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time
by Annabel Streets'A delightful balance of ideas, inspiration and science' Tristan Gooley, author of The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs________________________'We can all learn something from 52 Ways to Walk. I know I can.' Michael Ball, BBC Radio 2________________________“Walking had become, once again, the great adventure of my life. But this time science could explain how and why” Walking strengthens our bodies, calms our minds and lifts our spirits. But it does so much more than this. Our vision, hearing, respiration, sleep, cognition, memory, blood pressure, sense of smell and balance (to name a few) are all enhanced by how we walk. For instance: · Walking in cold weather burns extra fat and builds more muscle.· Walking alone strengthens our memories.· Walking in woodland helps us sleep.· And there's nothing more restorative than a romantic nighthike.Our choice of location, time, direction, duration, walking companion and gait, as well as the weather we opt to walk in, can transform our daily stroll. Here, Annabel Streets shares the thrill of 52 walking styles, explaining the latest science behind each one, and providing practical tips for making the most of your daily steps.52 Ways to Walk is a revelatory and informative handbook for anyone stuck in a walking rut, curious about the lesser-known benefits of walking or merely in need of some on-foot novelty and adventure. _________________________________Beautifully designed and pocket-sized, 52 Ways to Walk is a love letter to walking.
The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
by Sonia Shah'A dazzlingly original picture of our relentlessly mobile species' NAOMI KLEIN'Fascinating . . . Likely to prove prophetic in the coming months and years' OBSERVER'A dazzling tour through 300 years of scientific history' PROSPECT'A hugely entertaining, life-affirming and hopeful hymn to the glorious adaptability of life on earth' SCOTSMANWe are surrounded by stories of people on the move. Wild species, too, are escaping warming seas and desiccated lands in a mass exodus. Politicians and the media present this upheaval of migration patterns as unprecedented, blaming it for the spread of disease and conflict, and spreading anxiety across the world as a result. But the science and history of migration in animals, plants, and humans tell a different story. Far from being a disruptive behaviour, migration is an ancient and lifesaving response to environmental change, a biological imperative as necessary as breathing. Climate changes triggered the first human migrations out of Africa. Falling sea levels allowed our passage across the Bering Sea. Unhampered by borders, migration allowed our ancestors to people the planet, into the highest reaches of the Himalayan Mountains and the most remote islands of the Pacific, disseminating the biological, cultural and social diversity that ecosystems and societies depend upon. In other words, migration is not the crisis – it is the solution. Tracking the history of misinformation from the 18th century through to today's anti-immigration policies, The Next Great Migration makes the case for a future in which migration is not a source of fear, but of hope.
Swamp Songs: Journeys Through Marsh, Meadow and Other Wetlands
by Tom BlassOozing with bad airs, boggarts and other spirits, the world's marshes and swamps are often seen as sinister, permanently twilit – and only partly of this earth. For centuries, they – and their inhabitants – have been the object of our distrust. We have tried to drain away their demons and tame them, destroying their fragile beauty, botany and birdlife, along with the carefully calibrated lives of those who have come to understand and thrive in them.In Swamp Songs, Tom Blass journeys through a series of such watery landscapes, from Romney Marsh to North Carolina, from Lapland to the Danube Delta and on to the Bay of Bengal, encountering those whose very existence has been shaped by wetlands, their myths and hidden histories. Here are tales of shepherds, smugglers and salt-gatherers; of mangroves and machismo, frogs and fishermen. And of carp soup, tiger gods, flamingos and floods.A dazzling exploration of lives lived on the fringes of civilisation, Swamp Songs is a vital reappraisal and vibrant celebration of people and environments closely intertwined.
Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future
by Philip Lymbery'Powerful, purposeful and persuasive … This book is transformative. We must read, mark and learn, fast' Michael Morpurgo'A call to action – to change our world from the ground up. A vitally necessary book' Isabella Tree'Philip Lymbery pulls no punches in cataloguing the calamitous mistakes we've made in our food system, but he has bold and inspiring solutions to offer, too.' Hugh Fearnley-WhittingstallTaking its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world's soils could be lost within a lifetime, Sixty Harvests Left uncovers how the food industry is threatening the planet. Put simply, without soils there will be no food: game over. And time is running out.From the United Kingdom to Italy, from Brazil to the Gambia to the USA, Philip Lymbery, the internationally acclaimed author of Farmageddon, goes behind the scenes of industrial farming and confronts 'Big Agriculture', where mega-farms, chemicals and animal cages are sweeping the countryside and jeopardising the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the nature that we treasure. In his investigations, however, he also finds hope in the pioneers who are battling to bring landscapes back to life, who are rethinking farming methods, rediscovering traditional techniques and developing technologies to feed an ever-expanding global population.Impassioned, balanced and persuasive, Sixty Harvests Left not only demonstrates why future harvests matter more than ever, but reveals how we can restore our planet for a nature-friendly future.
Don't Panic! We CAN Save The Planet
by James CampbellTired of FREAKING OUT about climate change? Want to stop being an eco-WORRIER and start being an eco-WARRIOR? And do you absolutely, positively LOVE laughing? Then this hands-on and hilarious guide to saving the world is for YOU!Written by award-winning author James Campbell - who lives off-grid and owns a compost loo - find out how cow-farts are wrecking the world, what a fossil fuel even is and why 'earthships' (and not spaceships) are the future! This book will help you understand what climate change is and how on Earth we can stop it TOGETHER!A hilarious and light-hearted look at the problems facing planet Earth, perfect for educating and comforting children who are worried about climate change.
The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding, Big and Small
by Isabella Tree'Important and empowering' - BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'Get this great guide and be inspired' - STEPHEN FRY'A handbook of hope ... Buy it, read it, start changing things right now' - JOANNA LUMLEY_______________The enormity of climate change and biodiversity loss can leave us feeling overwhelmed. How can an individual ever make a difference?Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell know firsthand how spectacularly nature can bounce back if you give it the chance. And what comes is not just wildlife in super-abundance, but solutions to the other environmental crises we face.The Book of Wilding is a handbook for how we can all help restore nature. It is ambitious, visionary and pragmatic. The book has grown out of Isabella and Charlie's mission to help rewild Britain, Europe and the rest of the world by sharing knowledge from their pioneering project at Knepp in Sussex. It is inspired by the requests they receive from people wanting to learn how to rewild everything from unprofitable farms, landed estates and rivers, to ponds, allotments, churchyards, urban parks, gardens, window boxes and public spaces.. The Book of Wilding has the answers._______________'Brilliantly readable and incredibly hard-working' - HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL'A deep, dazzling and indispensable guide to the most important task of all: the restoration of the living planet' - GEORGE MONBIOT
The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding, Big and Small
by Isabella Tree'Important and empowering' - BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'Get this great guide and be inspired' - STEPHEN FRY'A handbook of hope ... Buy it, read it, start changing things right now' - JOANNA LUMLEY_______________The enormity of climate change and biodiversity loss can leave us feeling overwhelmed. How can an individual ever make a difference?Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell know firsthand how spectacularly nature can bounce back if you give it the chance. And what comes is not just wildlife in super-abundance, but solutions to the other environmental crises we face.The Book of Wilding is a handbook for how we can all help restore nature. It is ambitious, visionary and pragmatic. The book has grown out of Isabella and Charlie's mission to help rewild Britain, Europe and the rest of the world by sharing knowledge from their pioneering project at Knepp in Sussex. It is inspired by the requests they receive from people wanting to learn how to rewild everything from unprofitable farms, landed estates and rivers, to ponds, allotments, churchyards, urban parks, gardens, window boxes and public spaces.. The Book of Wilding has the answers._______________'Brilliantly readable and incredibly hard-working' - HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL'A deep, dazzling and indispensable guide to the most important task of all: the restoration of the living planet' - GEORGE MONBIOT
Slow Seasons: A Creative Guide to Reconnecting with Nature the Celtic Way
by Rosie Steer'A truly beautiful book. Rosie's writing makes me want to close my laptop, step outside, and appreciate the magic that each season brings' Jessica Elliot DennisonIn her late-twenties, feeling utterly overwhelmed by the pace of modern city life, Rosie Steer found solace in the traditions she had been brought up with, influenced by her Scottish roots, that celebrated nature and observed the small steady shifts in the seasons.The Celtic Wheel of the year is an ancient seasonal cycle that aligns with solar events – the solstices, equinoxes and their midpoints. For each mini-season, Rosie shares nature notes for what we can look out for as the days get warmer or cooler, the nights longer or shorter, alongside activities, things to make, flowers or fruit to forage, seasonal recipes to enjoy and a modern take on the traditional celebrations.As the Wheel turns towards Samhain on 31st October, we can look forward to foraging apples and berries to make Hedgerow jelly, watching the leaves turn golden, collecting pine cones for a Pine cone garland and celebrating pumpkin season with Pumpkin and root veg chilli and Chocolate cake with pumpkin curd.By slowing down and paying attention to the ebbs and flows of nature, we can find moments of calm whenever we need them.
Slow Seasons: A Creative Guide to Reconnecting with Nature the Celtic Way
by Rosie Steer'A truly beautiful book. Rosie's writing makes me want to close my laptop, step outside, and appreciate the magic that each season brings' Jessica Elliot DennisonIn her late-twenties, feeling utterly overwhelmed by the pace of modern city life, Rosie Steer found solace in the traditions she had been brought up with, influenced by her Scottish roots, that celebrated nature and observed the small steady shifts in the seasons.The Celtic Wheel of the year is an ancient seasonal cycle that aligns with solar events – the solstices, equinoxes and their midpoints. For each mini-season, Rosie shares nature notes for what we can look out for as the days get warmer or cooler, the nights longer or shorter, alongside activities, things to make, flowers or fruit to forage, seasonal recipes to enjoy and a modern take on the traditional celebrations.As the Wheel turns towards Samhain on 31st October, we can look forward to foraging apples and berries to make Hedgerow jelly, watching the leaves turn golden, collecting pine cones for a Pine cone garland and celebrating pumpkin season with Pumpkin and root veg chilli and Chocolate cake with pumpkin curd.By slowing down and paying attention to the ebbs and flows of nature, we can find moments of calm whenever we need them.
Fevered Planet: How Diseases Emerge When We Harm Nature
by John VidalA timely and urgent investigation from John Vidal, Environment Editor of the Guardian for nearly thirty years, into how the destruction of nature is releasing disease into our societies'Urgent, fascinating and essential' GEORGE MONBIOT'A searing, vital work' BETTANY HUGHESCovid-19, mpox, bird flu, SARS, HIV, AIDS, Ebola; we are living in the Age of Pandemics – one that we have created. As the climate crisis reaches a fever pitch and ecological destruction continues unabated, we are just beginning to reckon with the effects of environmental collapse on our global health.Fevered Planet exposes how the way we farm, what we eat, the places we travel to and the scientific experiments we conduct create the perfect conditions for deadly new diseases to emerge and spread faster and further than ever. Drawing on the latest scientific research and decades of reporting from more than 100 countries, former Guardian environment editor John Vidal takes us into deep, disappearing forests in Gabon and the Congo, valleys scorched by wildfire near Lake Tahoe and our densest, polluted cities to show how closely human, animal and plant diseases are now intertwined with planetary destruction. He calls for an urgent transformation in our relationship with the natural world, and expertly outlines how to make that change possible.
Finding Home: Amazing Places Animals Live
by Mike UnwinTake a tour of 20 unforgettable animal homes: unearth polar bear dens deep beneath the Arctic snow, soar above eagle nests as big as cars and marvel at the remoras that make themselves comfortable on the ocean's deadliest predators.Finding Home is a celebration of animals and their drive to survive no matter the odds - finding shelter in every nook and cranny on Earth, from the obvious to the unusual. With rich, vivid non-fiction storytelling and arresting illustrations, this is an essential collection for anyone fascinated by animals and the wild ways they live.A stunning sequel from Mike Unwin and Jenni Desmond, the internationally bestselling duo behind Migration.
Bud: The story of how a plant grows ... up!
by Laura HambletonThis bright, fun and friendly non-fiction picture book about what happens when one plant grows (up) is a gentle introduction to plant life cycles for readers 3+.Meet Bud, a TINY rosebud on a BIG adventure. Sitting in a cosy greenhouse, in an even cosier red pot is Bud. Every day, Bud is warmed by Sun and told stories about the BIg Outside by Moon. Bud is happy and content until ... POP! Bud is planted beside looming trees and wiggly worms. The Big Outside is SCARY - but new adventures can be, and there's no bigger adventure than growing up. A reassuring growing-up story with facts about plants, this adorable book will inspire green fingers in little ones while preparing them for their own growing-up journey.
Eat Dirt
by Goldy MoldavskyFrom New York Times bestselling author Goldy Moldavsky comes the hilarious and heart-warming Eat Dirt.He's not asking for much. All Gregor Maravilla wants to do is feed all of the starving children on the planet. So when he's selected to join Camp Save the World, a special summer program for teenage activists from all over the country to champion their cause, Gregor's sure he's on the path to becoming Someone Great.But then a prize is announced. It will be awarded at the end of summer to the activist who shows the most promise in their campaign. Gregor's sure he has the prize in the bag, especially compared to some of the other campers' campaigns. Like Eat Dirt, a preposterous campaign started by Ashley Woodstone, a famous young actor who most likely doesn't even deserve to be at the camp. Everywhere Gregor goes, Ashley seems to show up ready to ruin things. Plus, the prize has an unforeseen side effect, turning a quiet summer into cutthroat warfare where campers stop focusing on their own campaigns and start sabotaging everyone else's.
The Nature Girls
by AKI Delphine MachWe're Nature Girls! We must explore. We pack our bags, we're out the door . . .The bold Nature Girls are ready for whatever nature throws at them! Join them as they pack their bags and start their journey, exploring natural habitats around the world. They swim in the sea, explore the desert, discover the harsh arctic tundra and more. There's so much to discover about the natural world, when you join this bright group of girls.The Nature Girls is an adorable rhyming picture book with stunning illustrations and a summary spread of fun nature facts at the back, from author/illustrator, Aki.
From The Wreck
by Jane RawsonWhen George Hills was pulled from the wreck of the steamship Admella, he carried with him memories of a disaster that claimed the lives of almost every other soul on board. Almost every other soul.Because as he clung onto the wreck, George wasn’t alone: someone else – or something else – kept George warm and bound him to life. Why didn’t he die, as so many others did, half-submerged in the freezing Southern Ocean? And what happened to his fellow survivor, the woman who seemed to vanish into thin air?George will live out the rest of his life obsessed with finding the answers to these questions. He will marry, father children, but never quite let go of the feeling that something else came out of the ocean that day, something that has been watching him ever since. The question of what this creature might want from him – his life? His first-born? To simply return home? – will pursue him, and call him back to the ocean again.Blending genres, perspectives and worlds, Jane Rawson’s From the Wreck - winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel- is a chilling and tender story about how fiercely we cling to life, and how no-one can survive on their own.
Insomnia
by John KinsellaThe Australian poet John Kinsella’s vivid and urgent new collection addresses the crisis of being that currently afflicts us: Kinsella addresses a situation where the creations of the human imagination, the very means by which we extend our empathies into the world – art, music and philosophy – suddenly find themselves in a world that not only denies their importance, but can sometimes seem to have no use for them at all. In an attempt to find a still point from which we might reconfigure our perspective and address the paradoxes of our contemporary experience, Kinsella has written poems of self-accusation and angry protest, meditations on the nature of loss and trauma, and full-throated celebrations of the natural world. Ranging from Jam Tree Gully, Western Australia to the coast of West Cork, Ireland, haunted by historical and literary figures from Dante to Emily Brontë (whom Kinsella has obsessed over since he was a child, and who intervenes in the poet’s attempts to come to grips with ideas of colonization and identity), Insomnia may be Kinsella’s most various and powerful collection to date.
The Mizzy
by Paul FarleyPaul Farley is now widely recognized as one of the leading English poets writing today. As usual it is impossible to summarize in terms of theme, as his interests are too various: there’s an air of ‘the innocence of childhood’ being viewed through the corrective lens of worldly middle age, though, and also of mid-life, its creeping self-consciousness and decrepitude, and the distortions of perception that attend it; confusing encounters with tech, modernity and its accelerated rate of change; satirical excursions critiquing the way business and digital communications have debased language. Farley is also interested as ever in the peripheral and marginal and no-man’s-lands – the lives of others, and their strange occupations; the birds and unsung-by-the-pocket-guides fauna and flora you miss. The Mizzy encapsulates one of poetry’s most capacious and eclectic imaginations.
Into the Wild: 30 Books Complete Teacher's Kit (Picador Classic)
by Jon KrakauerThe true story of college graduate Chris McCandless, who decided to walk away from the only life he ever knew and enter the wild.
Poems of Childhood (Macmillan Collector's Library)
by VariousA child’s life should be full of poems, rhymes and songs, and Poems of Childhood is a celebration of that. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by acclaimed children's writer, Michael Morpurgo.Poems of Childhood combines the best of classic children’s poetry into one anthology featuring a rich range of themes – from animals to nursery rhymes, from nonsense poems to magic. Many favourites are here, including ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, ‘Jabberwocky’ and ‘The Tyger’. This delightful collection is the perfect gift for children and a chance for adults to revisit their favourite verse from the likes of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame.
Poems for Happiness (Macmillan Collector's Library)
by VariousPoetry is the perfect medium to capture the elusive nature of happiness and this beautiful anthology explores happiness in all its forms – whether it be a fleeting moment, the promise of freedom and adventure, surviving adversity or the comfort of nature. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by writer, broadcaster and parish priest, the Reverend Richard Coles.Poems for Happiness is an inspiring and life-affirming collection that features writing by some of our greatest poets whose work is still widely read today. It includes famous poems such as ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling, ‘My Heart Leaps Up’ by William Wordsworth and ‘Invictus’ by W. E. Henley. In addition to these well-known verses, this beautiful volume includes lesser-known poems to discover and enjoy.
Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change
by Nathaniel RichBy 1979, we knew all that we know now about the science of climate change – what was happening, why it was happening, and how to stop it. Over the next ten years, we had the very real opportunity to stop it. Obviously, we failed.Nathaniel Rich’s groundbreaking account of that failure – and how tantalizingly close we came to signing binding treaties that would have saved us all before the fossil fuels industry and politicians committed to anti-scientific denialism – is already a journalistic blockbuster, a full issue of the New York Times Magazine that has earned favorable comparisons to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Rich has become an instant, in-demand expert and speaker. A major movie deal is already in place. It is the story, perhaps, that can shift the conversation.In the book Losing Earth, Rich is able to provide more of the context for what did – and didn’t – happen in the 1980s and, more important, is able to carry the story fully into the present day and wrestle with what those past failures mean for us in 2019. It is not just an agonizing revelation of historical missed opportunities, but a clear-eyed and eloquent assessment of how we got to now, and what we can and must do before it's truly too late.