Nature Writing

Noreen Masud has always loved flatlands. Her earliest memory is of a wide, flat field glimpsed from the back seat of her father's car in Lahore. As an adult in Britain she has discovered many more flat landscapes to love: Orford Ness, the Cambridgeshire Fens, Morecambe Bay, Orkney. These bare, haunted expanses remind her of the flat place inside herself: the place created by trauma. Noreen suffers from complex post traumatic stress disorder: the product of a profoundly disrupted and unstable childhood.

John Scott hiked the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail to celebrate his life. As a teenage boy in 1970s Scotland, he was fascinated by US politics and culture. John explores this fascination as he hikes through 14 states, from Georgia to Maine. Over miles and months, he realises it is the land and people which now captivate him. To the Woods is a walk through a man's life.

Join author Tim Hauserman on his solo journeys through the Sierra Nevada and the forests of Minnesota. Hauserman shares his experiences hiking by himself through some of the most spectacular landscapes in the United States. Along the way, he confronts his conflicting desires to be alone in the wilderness, then facing profound loneliness and fear once he is there. In a single instant, he goes from enjoying a shimmering mountain lake to being petrified by the sound of a bear crunching through sticks right next to his tent.

Midlife crisis, his life’s dreams at an early end, it was time to bust out and see the world. Nowick Gray sets out with backpack and drum to find out what he’s been missing. Tropical warmth, better health, inner peace… He scours Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Latin America for that perfect beach, a new tribe, a winter home. Will ayahuasca heal his woes, or an ayurvedic cleanse? Beset by desperate touts on an abandoned Bali shore, he knows he’s a dying breed: the last tourist. With this fourth book in the My Country series, Nowick’s travels extend across the globe, caught in ...

For many years a farmer in England, John Lewis-Stempel yearned once again to live in a landscape where turtle doves purr and nightingales sing, as they did almost everywhere in his childhood. He wanted to be self-sufficient, to make his own wine and learn the secrets of truffle farming. And so, buying an old honey-coloured limestone house with bright blue shutters, the Lewis-Stempels began their new life as peasant farmers.

Leif Bersweden has always been fascinated by wild plants. From a young age, his afternoons were spent hunting for and cataloguing the plants in his local area. But it is a landscape that is fast disappearing. Climate change, habitat destruction and declining pollinator populations mean that the future for plant life looks bleaker than ever before. Many of us are also unable to identify, or even notice, the plants that grow around us. Now a botanist, Leif decides to go on a mission, to explore the plants that Britain and Ireland have to offer.

Pilgrims have always walked in times of upheaval, pitching themselves against weather, hunger, thirst and sometimes pain as they tread the paths their ancestors followed before them. In The Gathering Place, author, nature campaigner and veteran solo walker Mary Colwell undertakes a 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino Francés in northern Spain at a unique moment in history – a time of pandemic, profound political change, and a climate and biodiversity emergency.

For readers and viewers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the inner workings of a terrifying elemental force; here is a cast of characters risking everything in an effort to bring that force under control.

Waypoint Tours are educational, entertaining, self-guided tours designed to help plan your travel adventures, enhance travel experience, and cherish your travel memories.

All of us have seen fish. Fishing looks easy, to the outside observer. But any serious fisherman knows that there is an art to fishing. You have to know when to go, what kind of lure to use, and what to do while you wait for them to bite your hook. Anyone who fishes uses special methods for success. Passionate anglers are constantly seeking to add new tips to their toolbox. In this audiobook, you'll find suggestions that will make you a better fisherman and allow you to catch the fish of your dreams. This audiobook describes what the fishing tips and tricks is all about.

In the form of several journeys, beginning in January 2019, Neil Ansell returns for solitary walks to the New Forest in Hampshire, close to where he was born. With beautiful sightings and observations of birds, trees, butterflies, insects and landscape, this is also a reflective memoir on childhood, on the history of one of the most ancient and important natural habitats in the United Kingdom and on the Gypsies who lived there for centuries - and were subsequently expelled to neighbouring cities.

Ein einsamer Fjord, ein Leben mit dem Herzschlag der Gezeiten. Ein Holzhäuschen mit Blick auf den Fjord, im Rücken die Berge und davor ein Steg mit einem kleinen Boot. Mehr braucht Gro Kristjánsdóttir nicht für ihren Neuanfang auf den norwegischen Lofoten. In der Erdölindustrie hat sie Karriere gemacht; durch ihre besondere Fähigkeit, die Natur zu lesen und Ölvorkommen zu entdecken, ist ihr Ruf legendär. All das ist nach dem unerwarteten Tod ihres Mannes Nicklas bedeutungslos geworden.

Chris Highland continues his friendly style of freethought in this new collection of essays (not published in his weekly columns) circling the theme of Nature. Chapters include:Pathfinding; Dirty Glaciers;; Eulogy for a Pond; I Sing the Body Electricity; The Phone Tree; Lessons from the Treetops; Nature’s Scripture; Natural Economics; Life is Too Short; By the Hands of Nature; How Green is God?; Green Village; Touch of Death; Wonder and Wildness; Living Bridge; Ancoutahan; Nearer to Wonder; and Mini-Migrations.

Fuelled by a degree of mid-life crisis and the need to escape, albeit temporarily, the dull routine of modern life, David and Rob set out to walk from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, taking in French villages, beautiful scenery, and one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in Europe. Just about perfect – if you can put aside the inevitable conflict, drama, and unexpected tedium that results from two men spending over seven solid weeks in each other’s company!

John Wright has been leading forays around Britain for decades. As an expert forager, he shows people how to identify the edible species that abound—but he also reveals the natural history, stories and science behind our surroundings. Here, he takes us with him on eight walks: from verdant forests to wild coastlines, via city pavements, fields and rolling hills, he illuminates what can be found on a walk across any British terrain, and how you might observe and truly understand them, for yourself.

A lifelong traveler, riding on a train from Long Beach to New Orleans, Louisiana, at age one—in the middle of World War II, to a 520-mile pilgrimage trek on the Camino de Santiago in his mid-70s—the author describes many ways he has grown internally as a result of his travels and bonding with nature.

A Family Emu Story is a wonderful fun filled bedtime story that children will want to hear over and over. It begins with a stork that delivered five emu eggs to a farm full of animals. It’s there where the eggs quickly hatch and the emus begin to grow. Children will immediately relate to the canny nature and fun sense of humor throughout the book as the emus learn to run and jump with amusement. And the fun doesn’t stop there, the emus keep on laughing into the night till morning finally comes, at which, it starts all over again.

On a series of coastal walks, Lisa Woollett takes us on an illuminating journey, bringing to life the places where mythology and reality meet at the very edges of Britain and Ireland. From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly and submerged prehistoric forests in Wales, to a Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight and castles in the air off County Clare, Lisa draws together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped and often overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.

What's it like to be a trail angel and can romance truly blossom from first meeting to marriage on the Pacific Crest Trail? How do trail names get bestowed and what does it mean when you find yourself roaring back at a mountain lion? How have climate change, technology, and the sheer number of hikers affected life on the PCT? Find the answers to all these questions, and so many more, in the diverse writings gathered in Crossing Paths, an anthology of stories and poems written by PCT hikers.

Sir Peter Scott had a truly incredible life. He was the only son of legendary explorer Captain Scott. His godfather was J. M. Barrie, and he was married to Elizabeth Jane Howard. He also represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at sailing in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal. He founded the Wildfoul and Wetlands Trust and also helped to found the Worldwide Fund for Nature. This is a beautiful and timely re-discovered book, perfect for those who are interested in preserving our planet.