Guest review by Nick Hodges: THIS BIRDING LIFE by Stephen Moss

 

"Moss can see an everyday bird and take pleasure from it - every day. His enthusiasm is catching: boundless."

Photograph with king parrot
by Judith Ramage

Nick Hodges is an Englishman living in Australia. He is a teacher and freelance journalist concentrating on Travel and Nature. His work has been published in Britain's Sunday Times, The Times Educational Supplement and the Tourist Board magazine, In Britain. Down Under, his work has appeared in leading newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Sun Herald. He has recently completed 20 years of writing a monthly Nature Notes article for a Sydney newspaper. He has designed and taught adult courses on The Birds of Sydney.

Nick Hodges is not a twitcher. Well - not really.

The book was old but still in good condition. I opened it and the phrase 'birds are so beautiful' grabbed me. That's right, I thought; that's why I like them.

The author, Stephen Moss, writer, broadcaster, TV producer and naturalist, knows what he's talking about. This Birding Life is a collection of essays on birds and birders which appeared many years ago at monthly intervals in The Guardian.

My copy had been half obscured at the back of a bookshelf and unread for a long time. I leafed through it and was struck by the similarities: I, too, had written once a month about nature. My pieces were published over a period of 20 years in a Sydney newspaper. But whereas Moss had written about birds my Nature Notes were more general: Kangaroos and Crocodiles as well as Cockatoos and Kookaburras.

I sat down, and read for several absorbing hours until I'd finished it: the book was that good.

Once, in northern Australia, 80 km from anywhere, I sat on the dusty bank of a tired, half-empty creek. Next to me was a naked tree, gaunt with what passes for winter in those parts. I waited. And waited. Then it happened. A great cloud passed over the sun before descending to immediately clothe the whole tree in what resembled a quivering mass of breeze-blown, green leaves. Winter became summer. And they weren't leaves - but Budgerigars! Thousands of them!

Corny perhaps to say it was a truly unforgettable sight. But it was. Who could I tell? Who would understand? Stephen Moss would.

Reading his book I felt a strong affinity with the man. When he sees his first Blue-cheeked Bee-eater he claims it to be 'the most breathtakingly beautiful bird I have ever seen: a vision of rich, warm colours somehow out of place in this harsh, grey landscape'. I know exactly what he means. That Bee-eater will stay with him always. And his first Little Bittern? 'One of the great moments of my birding life'. One suspects he means his entire life.

This Birding Life is divided into seven parts: Growing Up, Spreading my Wings, My Local Patch, Birding Britain, Birding Abroad etc. Each containing several essays. When you've read the lot you've also read much of the story of the author's life.

Stephen Moss's prose is straightforward but effective. His descriptions are illuminating. He says that Yellow Wagtails resemble flying lemons - and he's right. They do! On an offshore island of breeding seabirds he writes, 'The Puffins continued loafing about, posing for photographs until the boat came'. And he's right. They do! On Ivory Gulls, he writes, 'despite its name this species is not ivory coloured at all. A better name might be 'Persil Gull: its plumage is almost whiter than white'.

There are essays on birds seen on country walks, in car parks, while commuting and on his regularly visited local patch. There are essays about birds in childhood and on birders themselves, great men of ornithology. There are essays on bird names: Thekla Lark, Eleonora's Falcon, Montagu's Harrier. Why are they named thus? Who were these people? How do you pronounce Adouin's Gull? And what exactly is a twitcher? And a mass twitch? It's all here.

Have you ever had a good look at a house sparrow? Moss can see such an everyday bird and take pleasure from it - every day. His enthusiasm is catching; boundless.

Being a birder is a reason to visit new, maybe-unknown spots: Minsmere Nature Reserve, for example, is surely one of Britain's most lovely places. Ditto, Cley Reserve in Norfolk; or the Hebrides. The very mention of these places inspires awe among birders. Me too. Stephen Moss visits all of these destinations in order to see different and new species of birds. He writes about these hallowed birding spots with what amounts to reverence. These are the places to go in order see rarities and possibly 100 species in a day. Yes: 100!

The book has no illustrations or photographs. However, Moss's prose carries the day. A word of warning: be careful if you check out his birds online. The Blue-cheeked Bee-eater for example. You'll be so dazzled by the colours you'll find yourself considering air fares to the bird's homeland. And air fares to Africa aren't cheap. But with or without illustrations the book is a decided tick.

This Birding Life is published by Aurum.

See also: 

12 Birds to Save your Life - Nature's Lessons in Happiness by Charlie Corbett, reviewed by Linda Sargent

Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer, translated by Antoinette Fawcett, reviewed by Daniel Hahn

A Sweet, Wild Note: What we Hear when the Birds Sing by Richard Smyth, reviewed by Dawn Finch

LOST ANIMALS, DISAPPEARING WORLDS - STORIES OF EXTINCTIONS by Barbara Allen, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

"Allen says that she wrote this book 'accompanied by many tears', but warns that it is too easy to judge the generations that came before us, while our own shows equal carelessness."

Linda Newbery edits Writers Review. Her latest novel for adults is The One True Thing.

Mention extinction, and the first animals that come to most people's minds will be dinosaurs, followed by the iconic dodo, woolly mammoth and sabre-toothed tiger. Barbara Allen's book ranges more widely, taking in a number of creatures I (and probably you) had never heard of, and moving closer to the present day, to species whose demise is most definitely down to human activity. Inevitably a sad compilation, it's informative and engaging too, largely thanks to the author's device of giving a 'voice' to a member of each vanished species. Most famous of these is 'Lonesome George', the Pinta Island tortoise who died in 2012 at about a hundred and ten years old - like other animals here he was an 'endling', the poignant term for a lone survivor destined to die unmated and as the last recorded individual of its species.

In the opening, Barbara Allen, a minister in the Uniting Church in Australia, speculates about why she's included some animals rather than others - for example two of those I've just mentioned, the woolly mammoth and sabre-toothed tiger, don't appear here. "What I do know," she acknowledges, "is that no book, with one exception, can contain stories about every extinct species; the only volume that can, and does, cradle those sad tales close to its heart, its core, is Earth." 

The concept of extinction was first used in 1796 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier, who spoke of animals living in "a world previous to ours". The religious establishment was affronted by this, just as it was sixty years later by the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. We now know that extinctions are caused both by cataclysmic events such as asteroid strikes or volcanic eruptions and by more gradual changes such as pollution, competition for food or shelter, and habitat loss. But how can we know when a species truly is extinct? The IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) is the global authority, categorising a species as extinct if no sightings have been reported for fifty years - though there are sometimes comebacks from 'Lazarus' species such as the coelacanth, which until 1938 had been known only as a fossil. But it's sobering to note that 41% of amphibians, 27 per cent of mammals and 13% of birds are currently threatened with extinction. More optimistically, the IUCN's Green List analyses conservation efforts and their impact on species recovery.

Allen also writes about 'de-extinction' or 'resurrection science', and how this could be done through cloning and genetic engineering; but she examines the ethics of this, how feasibly it can be done, the effects on other species if, say, mammoths were reintroduced to the Arctic tundra, and whether hubris might result in humans thinking that by 'tinkering' they could do better than nature. And, as she points out, "If we think we can 'replace' a species, then apathy may set in, making us less inclined to protect others."

In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, or Holocene extinction, many of us experience the ecological grief referred to by the American conservationist Aldo Leopold when he wrote of the 'world of wounds' experienced by those who care and learn about the natural world. Allen wonders how best to 'memorialise' the lost creatures, recognising that each led its individual life and was not just a representative of its species. She describes the huge 'Lost Birds' sculptures of Todd McGrain: the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet, the great auk, the heath hen and the Labrador duck, each sculpture positioned, where possible, at the site where the last known individual was shot or sighted. As McGrain says, "at those places haunted by what is missing". Some of the creatures in this book are illustrated with drawings, others by sad photographs of an animal alive or preserved: Qi Qi, the world's only captive Yangtze river dolphin; the Xerces blue butterfly; a stuffed ivory-billed woodpecker; a solitary Quagga in a cage in London Zoo.

Allen's own approach is to give an individual of each species a character and allow it to 'speak' to us, in tones of outrage, resignation, boastfulness or accusation. The Dodo, for example, introduces itself: "What a stupid name! Sets me up as a thing of ridicule; if one is not accorded respect, it is easier to kill ... some individuals in the past and in the present have found it had to believe that I was real, that I was not a made-up character for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I wonder when children realize that I was factual, real, rather than a creature of legend or fantasy? But fantasy doesn't exist and now neither do we." The Spectacled Cormorant, which inhabited Bering Island, complains that "Less than a century after we had been 'discovered', we were extinct" - thanks to its short wings and lack of suspicion of humans.

It's hard to comprehend how the once so numerous passenger pigeon could have been allowed to become extinct. The acclaimed bird artist John James Audubon wrote in the 1930s that when a flock passed over "the light of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse". (The book's cover shows a version of his painting of these pigeons, with the birds as blank silhouettes.) A flight of the massed birds could take three days to pass. Of course, they consumed grain and damaged trees and were not beloved by farmers, so they were shot in their thousands, sometimes as part of organised competitions. Forest depletion also led to a reduction in their numbers; efforts to save them came too late. The last known bird, Martha, died in 1914 at Cincinatti Zoo. 

Allen says that she wrote this book "accompanied by many tears". but warns that it is too easy to judge the generations that came before us, while our own shows equal carelessness. The penultimate chapter has the Bramble Cay Melomys, a rodent inhabitant of Papua New Guinea, lamenting as the tides rise higher that humans destroyed it: "not face to face but, rather, through greed, or ignorance, or indifference ... or apathy". Snails, small rodents and amphibians don't attract the attention given to polar bears or snow leopards, but their loss is just as significant as that of the bigger, more iconic species.

It could be argued that the fate of most species on Earth is to become extinct in time, but human activity has produced a current rate of loss estimated to be between 100 and 1000 times the rate of natural background extinction. Allen's book doesn't include any British species, but the recent State of Nature report found that an alarming one in six species, including the once-familiar water voles, hazel dormice and turtle doves, are at risk because of farming activity, pesticide use and habitat loss.

"May we endeavour," Allen concludes, "to add as few names and pages as possible to this book of extinction." Amen to that.

Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds is published by Reaktion Books

See also: The Invention of Nature - the Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science, reviewed by Linda Newbery

Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie, reviewed by Sue Purkiss

Sarn Helen, a Journey through Wales, Past, Present and Future, by Tom Bullough, reviewed by Alison Layland

Guest review by Dennis Hamley: THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE by Jonathan Coe

 

"A superb book. You’ll have to work hard at it. But the rewards are intensely satisfying." 

Dennis Hamley's first novel, Pageants of Despair, was published in 1974. He read English at Jesus College, Cambridge, and has a PhD from Leicester. After teaching, lecturing and acting as County English Advisor for Hertfordshire, he retired to write full-time. He has written widely for children and young adults; one of his best-known books, The War and Freddy, was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize. His recent adult novel, The Second Person from Porlock, is a fantasy riff on the chaotic life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and was published in 2021. His highly-acclaimed novel Spirit of the Place will be reissued by Writers Review Publishing later this year. He lives in Oxford with his wife Kay, an artist.

Yes, Jonathan Coe is indeed a brilliant author. Acerbic about society and especially its politics, profound understanding of human, especially sexual, relationships, sometimes a bit of cosy crime, very funny – no wonder Bob Mortimer, himself a cosy crime author, says ‘My comfort read is anything by Jonathan Coe.’ But I think The Proof of my Innocence is anything but comfortable. Funny but alarming.

How many of us have been irritated by that persistent cry of 'See it, say it, sorted' which assaults our ears on train journeys? Well, it certainly annoys the first character, as yet unidentified, who we meet in the short, intriguing prologue. But the book has three parts. Guess what each of the three parts is called. A typical Coe joke. So why is Proof different in kind from its predecessors?

Phyl has come down from university. The only job she can find is preparing sushi at Heathrow airport. Back home, her mother Joanna, vicar of a small parish, is expecting an old university friend to call in on his way to a conference. Christopher Swann writes a much-read left-wing political blog and the conference he is bound for is the first of a group which calls itself British TrueCon. He knows he will not be welcome. He brings with him Rashida, his adopted daughter. She and Phyl will later make a formidable partnership.

Christopher and Joanna first met at St Stephen’s College, Cambridge, to which all the main characters went. I presume that the fictional St Stephen’s is based on Trinity College, the college of treachery, to which Burgess, Maclean and Philby went and of which Blunt was a fellow. Coe was at Trinity himself so he knows what he is talking about. The implication seems to me to be that the TrueCon gathering is not just a Reform-lite party conference but something sinister, treacherous and dangerous. Emeric Coutts, fellow of St Stephens, is the eminence grise. He runs salons in the college for like-minded students. This reminds me of the Apostles, a real subversive Cambridge secret society. When a Coutts salon is over and students leave, a few stay behind and disappear with Coutts into an adjoining room in which, presumably, really secret - and dangerous - discussions ensue.

These people are not playing politics. They are murderous. During the Truecon conference, Swann is murdered. Or is he? The strange ending of the book suggests otherwise. It parallels an odd incident on the notorious Fish Hill, three miles east of Evesham, during Swann’s drive to the conference. If the ending is ‘true’, perhaps he never got there.

The story continues teasingly obliquely. Odd footfalls in the memory. What is the significance of the old ballad, Oh you have been poisoned, oh Randall my son? Who has poisoned him? His sweetheart. What will he leave her? A rope from hell to hang her.

A Rope from Hell. The title of a novel by Peter Cockerill, a famous writer who commits suicide. Or does he? Somebody does. The trouble is, we can never be sure who we are talking to. Nothing is ever what it seems. This tightly constructed novel seemingly moves with the inconsequentiality of dream. Or nightmare.

As a final joke, the story begins on the first day of Liz Truss’s doomed premiership and ends on the day of its ignominious conclusion.

 
A superb book. You’ll have to work hard at it. But the rewards are intensely satisfying. The clue is in the title.

The Proof of my Innocence is published by Viking.

See also Dennis's feature on his novel The Second Person from Porlock.

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey

 

"This jewel of a book is out there, like our beautiful planet in space; silent, modest, wonderful, waiting to be found."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

I can’t think of a more divisive recent novel. Friends and acquaintances either loved or loathed this 2024 title. Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, written in 2007 attracted similar strong emotions. Both are novellas, both were shortlisted for the Booker Prize but McEwan, having won in 1998, dipped out in 2007, while Harvey went on to win in 2024.

Major prize winners are always open to a superfluity of opinions. It goes with the territory. Critics are asked for their reviews, book groups, along with huge numbers of the general, book reading public rush to buy or borrow, so they can see what the fuss is about. So what was the fuss about in 2024?

The major complaint seemed to be that ‘nothing happens’ in Orbital. I beg to differ. Admittedly, in spite of it’s 136 pages I didn’t find it a quick read. Orbital demands attention. Once one does pay the story the compliment of starting off with an open mind, and being ready to concentrate; it, for me at any rate, repays every reading moment. What is there to be said about orbiting the Earth multiple times for nine months? Well, quite a lot as it happens. There are the many facts sprinkled through the narrative. Harvey thanks NASA and ESA for the wealth of information made available and my goodness, these facts don’t disappoint, nor does the way she relates them with her quiet, authority.

The novel rotates with the space station, passing developing weather patterns, ambling past the ink dark Atlantic, or brilliantly lit Europe, over and over again, measuring the hours of astronaut time as if they are living Earth sunrises and sunsets, though at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour. The pace of the novel suggests Earth time, while for the astronauts the days pass quickly, with so much to do, so much essential exercise, experiments, housekeeping. Hanging in their sleeping bags, asleep, head over heels over head…

And of course there are other stories, the astronaut’s stories. Each individual is out of reach of a loved one to embrace, short of Earth knowledge, though seeing the planet more entirely than anyone living on its surface. Such a disconnect at so much distance, such possible domestic disasters, and yet not one wants to go home early. Hidden illness, the death of a Mother, and yet somehow, the six of them are sufficient unto each others’ equilibrium.

Don’t expect great drama, fallings out, or violence in the space station. A hand’s breadth away from disaster, the metal holds, in spite of its age. And, so do the six men and women within it. This jewel of a book is out there, like our beautiful planet in space; silent, modest, wonderful, waiting to be found.

Orbital is published by Vintage. 

See also Samantha Harvey's The Shapeless Unease, reviewed by Graeme Fife

More of Cindy's choices: 

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Katherine Rooney

Guest review by Emma Pass: THE MIDNIGHT HOUR by Eve Chase

 

"Primarily a mystery, but it turned out to be so much more ..."

Emma Pass has been making up stories for as long as she can remember. She wrote her first novel – a sequel to Jurassic Park – when she was 13 in maths lessons with her notebook under her work. She used to be a library assistant but now works a full-time writer, creative writing tutor, mentor and editor for organisations such as The Literary Consultancy and Writing East Midlands. Emma is autistic, has Cerebral Palsy and lives with CFS ME. She writes historical romance for adults, sci fi for teenagers and adventure stories for children. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Romantic Novel Awards, won the 2015 Concorde Book Award and the 2014 NE Teen Award, was longlisted for the Bransford Boase Award and has twice been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. She also writes poetry and short stories, has had an article published in Mslexia Magazine, and in 2020 was commissioned to make a poetry film for the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site in Derbyshire. Find out more from Emma's website.

In 1998, teenager Maggie's beautiful but fragile mother Dee Dee, a fading actress and model, walks out of the house one evening and doesn't return. Maggie, left in charge of younger brother Kit, must try to unravel what might have happened with the help of new friend Wolf, but Dee Dee seems to have vanished off the face of the earth and every which way she turns, Maggie's only met with more questions. Then something happens, and Maggie and Kit are forced to flee to Paris to take refuge with their aunt, Cora. Twenty-one years later, still living in Paris, Maggie gets a phonecall that threatens to shatter the life she's so carefully built for herself: in London, the caller tells her, the new owner of her and Kit's childhood home is excavating the basement, threatening to reveal the dark secret hidden for all these years…

Although the blurb for this novel drew me in immediately, I've never read a book by Eve Chase before, so I wasn't sure what to expect – at first glance it seemed as if The Midnight Hour was, primarily, a mystery, but it turned out to be so much more. The story has two timelines, one set in the late 1990s and one set in the present (pre-Pandemic) day, both told mainly from the viewpoint of protagonist Maggie with the occasional chapter from Kit, and switching between first and third person so it's immediately clear which one we're in. Although there is a mystery at this novel's core, it's also a richly layered coming-of-age story about family, loss and love, warmly written in a poetic voice that, with its use of metaphor and simile, stirred up vivid imagery and emotions that lingered in my mind long after I'd finished reading. The 1990s sections evoke a powerful sense of nostalgia, too, with their descriptions of London and the antique shop belonging to Wolf's uncle. I lived in the south-east of England during this decade, am roughly the same age as Maggie and visited London frequently as a teenager; the sights, sounds and smells of the city in this era are brought to life on the page so evocatively, I almost felt I was back there.

The plot itself is deftly handled. Sometimes, with mystery stories, I can see the twist coming a mile off, but The Midnight Hour kept me guessing right to the end, and in the age before mobile phones and the internet became ubiquitous, the fact that Dee Dee could simply disappear without trace feels completely believable. However, after a fairly dramatic opening chapter, the novel takes a little while to get going – not something I have an issue with, personally, as I adore immersive stories that allow you time to get to know the characters and settings, but if you're an impatient reader who likes to be thrust straight into the thick of things, this may not be for you. If you're a fan of twisty, multi-layered stories with compelling characterisation and beautiful writing, though, I'd urge you to give The Midnight Hour a go! I am now a firm fan of Eve Chase and will definitely be reading more by her.

The Midnight Hour is published by Penguin.

Guest review by Laura Parker: LAND BENEATH THE WAVES by Nic Wilson

"At one level, this is the story of how the natural world entranced, comforted and sustained her as she developed her expert eye ... there is a lot to learn and enjoy in her observations, and in her intense feeling for the land."

Laura Parker is the author of no books (yet), but she is working on one about drystone walls, and has written a growing collection of articles published by Country Life magazine. Her work covers animals and the art and history of the countryside. She has also been published in Little Toller’s The Clearing, an online journal in which writers explore and celebrate the landscape we live in, as well as in Scottish Field and Scottish daily The Courier. Find out more on Laura's website.

As one might expect from a Guardian Country Diarist, nature runs through this book like the chalk bedrock that unrolls beneath Nic Wilson’s adopted home territory of Hertfordshire. Despite its bold opening statement: ‘I am not a memoirist’, what ensues, initially, are some delicate childhood recollections of birding with her father and being introduced to nature close up: moths, rosebay willowherb, birds’ nests. At one level, this is the story of how the natural world entranced, comforted and sustained her as she developed her expert eye. Trained as a teacher, Nic is a natural educator and there is a lot to learn and enjoy in her observations, and in her intense feeling for the land. There is beautiful, tangible writing: ‘Oak bark knuckles my back, its touch reassuringly solid.’

But Nic’s past – and her present – is clouded with pain, both mental and physical. Some stems from the experience of her mother, struggling with undiagnosed ME in the 1970s, a time when women’s pain and illnesses were ignored to the point of tragedy: Nic and her brother were nearly taken away. The act of writing this book reveals to her the impact of a childhood spent not wanting to worry an ill parent. Counselling helps her to unlock her writing. ‘Can open; worms everywhere’ reads her journal.

A withdrawn but clever child, silent in class, Nic begins to find comfort in reading, and self-expression in drama. At university, she locates soulmates, a partner, and a land she really loves in the north-east of England. Happiness begins to percolate through habitual anxiety and mysterious seizures. But when she and her new husband are uprooted to move to Hertfordshire, the balance again becomes precarious, and she seeks a new anchor. It is her exploration of this unpromisingly (to her) tame landscape, that for me contains the most interesting and thoughtful writing. Through observation, research, and natural curiosity she digs below Hitchin’s historic reputation as a centre for lavender and finds it was also once famous for its nightingales. She learns which Victorian collector planted the giant sequoias, and how the land was worked, and enclosed. The fossils found in the railway embankment lead her to imagine how a Conulus (extinct sea urchin) made its way under Cretaceous oceans. She introduces her small children to nature, discovering plants and insects on the way to school, and starts to grow vegetables. Alongside the quotidian, she seeks to explore what the land means to her and why. ‘And what it could, or possibly should, mean to every one of us.’

The book is laced with personal pain. After suffering post-natal depression, Nic receives a late diagnosis of coeliac disease, and outlines the inconveniences of a diet that not only restricts food choices but inhibits her social life. In flashbacks, she uncovers how her dissociative seizures could have been caused by past trauma, subconsciously triggered by extreme emotion. Gradually, and against her natural instinct, she lays herself open about how these fits make her feel as though she is trapped in an alternative reality, horribly ashamed. Then her health crisis deepens: ‘fatigue and anxiety, my old nemeses, have called on a new accomplice, pain, to complete the unholy Trinity.’

Adenomyosis, an excruciating uterine condition, is tardily diagnosed and unsuccessfully treated, echoing her mother’s story.

She turns to landscape as her salvation, sitting it out in local wooded wetlands. As she hits rock bottom, her busy writer’s mind finds parallels. ‘When you reach that lowest point, it’s worth taking a careful look at the bedrock that caused your fall.’ She identifies with mineral beneath her feet: ‘Though I’d like to be flint…I’m all chalk.’

Parts of this book are cris de cœur, painful to read. And in contemplating the state of nature, Nic Wilson inevitably deals with loss. ‘What have my children done to deserve this?’ She also – not that this is a comfort – finds parallels in the past. The famous nightingales hit a sudden decline in the 1880s. And she asks a question about our relationship with history that resonated with me most:

‘I want to ask how, without an awareness of local landscape history, without some sense of what once existed – those plants, animals, habitats we have disregarded, forgotten and destroyed – we can ever truly assess the legacy we’re leaving for future generations.’

Land Beneath the Waves is published by Summersdale. 

Laura Parker has also reviewed The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

See also Nature Cure, by Richard Mabey, reviewed by Linda Newbery

Guest review by David Breakell: DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK by Kate Atkinson

 

"Only a writer of Atkinson's skill could pull this off without straining credibility to breaking point."

David Breakell, formerly a practising lawyer in the City of London, writes historical fiction. His novel The Alchemist of Genoa was published in March this year - find out more on his website.

Great fictional detectives have dysfunctional personal lives. Or at least that's how it seems: Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, Inspector Laidlaw - just add your favourites to the list. And Kate Atkinson's sardonic ex-cop turned private eye, Jackson Brodie, is a great detective. Not 'great' for his brilliant deductive reasoning or his observational powers, or even that he (usually) gets his man, if not the girl. Rather that his humanity, fallibility, dark humour - and the sheer train wreck of his life - grab our minds and hearts and never let go.

If you've read any of Atkinson’s novels, then you won't need much arm-twisting to read this one, the sixth to feature Jackson Brodie. Just as there are spy fiction writers and then there's John Le Carre so, in this reviewer's mind at least, there are crime writers and then there's Kate Atkinson.

Jackson Brodie trails his personal history like a long-life shopping bag and he's instrumental in unravelling the truth behind the crimes, but he's not a permanent presence in the novel. DC Reggie Chase, the rookie police detective last seen in “Big Sky”, is given equal billing this time. Reggie is a warm-hearted young woman who’s clever - but not always wise - beyond her years.

It seems that Atkinson has decided to have fun with this latest novel in the series. She places her focus on the other main characters. And what a menagerie they make: the battleaxe - or just plain batty - dowager marchioness and her graceless offspring; the solitary vicar who has lost his only child, then his faith and now his voice; and the young army officer, invalided out with only one leg and yet to find an alternative purpose in life.

Written like that, it might not sound as if humour was the intention. But Atkinson sets these characters against a background straight out of Agatha Christie: a crumbling stately home, a missing Old Master or two, a killer on the run, a snowstorm in which three of the main characters get separately stranded, and the unloved novels of a whodunit writer, whose creaking plots mirror the real-life crimes.

Atkinson ramps up the comedy by pitching her real-life characters against pretend ones, a troupe of might-have-been actors who are contracted to perform in a Murder Mystery evening at the stately home. No-one, except perhaps Jackson, seems able to separate the stage villains from the real ones. The action hurtles at an ever-increasing pace towards near-farce and the bodies, dead or just acting, mount up.

The Christie parody is of course intentional: only a writer of Atkinson's skill could pull this off without straining credibility to breaking point. In the meantime, her trademark one-liners propel the reader along. Talking to the heirs of a deceased old lady who describe her death as 'peaceful', Jackson muses, "He had seen a lot of dead people, and he wouldn't call them peaceful. He would call them dead." When it comes to the Pet Service at the local parish church, Lady Milton "made a point of not taking her own dogs. It might have given them ideas."

Atkinson also has the uncanny ability to take an everyday observation and turn it on its head. Contemplating the gravestones in his churchyard, the vicar reflects that plague victims "had never tasted coffee. Or tea for that matter. Or potatoes. The list of deprivations in the Middle Ages was a long one." The invalided soldier with his too-stiff-upper-lip parents believes that "if you spent too long trying to look on the bright side, you became dazzled and couldn't see anything properly.”

So, how does this compare with other Jackson Brodie novels? Much as I enjoyed it, I doubt it will rank with her very best. Admittedly, "When Will There Be Good News?" was a pretty hard act to follow, with one of the most jaw-dropping opening chapters I've ever read. The book had the power to make you both laugh and cry, many times. The bereft vicar apart, this latest novel is weighted more towards comedy: and indeed, I laughed, but I would have liked more of the emotional tug of its predecessors…

In the same way as Graham Greene described some of his own oeuvre, “Death at the Sign of the Rook” could perhaps be classed as an 'entertainment' rather than a novel. But I'll take a Kate Atkinson 'entertainment' over someone else's magnum opus, any day.

Death at the Sign of the Rook is published by Penguin.

David Breakell's The Alchemist of Genoa is published by Dower House Books.

See also: Nicola Morgan's review of Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins.