The finest nature writing successfully incorporates our own culture and emotions into the observation and understanding of wildlife. There is, at last, something of a renaissance in home-grown nature writing. And - no surprise, perhaps, after decadesof derring-do and feigned masculine detachment - it's women who are leading the singing, a singing coming uncompromisingly from the heart. Kathleen Jamie's Findings includes an essay on the breeding peregrines she can see from her attic window, and a meditation of piercing intelligence and poignancy on the exhibits in a medical museum. In Tigers in Red Weather, Ruth Padel recounts her quest for William Blake's heroic beast, "burning bright", as she seeks her own independence at the end of a love affair. And in her forthcoming Echo Lands, Geraldine Taylor weaves together her sparkling explorations of Leigh Woods, in the Avon Gorge near Bristol, with memories of her son.
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