The Wild Isles

By Patrick Barkham (editor),

Book cover of The Wild Isles: An Anthology of the Best of British and Irish Nature Writing

Book description

The very best of British and Irish nature writing selected by the natural history writer Patrick Barkham. The landscapes of Britain and Ireland, together with the creatures and plants that inhabit them, have penetrated deep in our collective imagination. From Gilbert White and Dorothy Wordsworth to Laurie Lee and Nan…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Wild Isles as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book really is the full package – an anthology of nature writing encompassing both fiction and non-fiction and travelling across the centuries to provide a vivid and kaleidoscopic celebration of the British Isles.

The book is divided into themes (for example, Woods; Swimming and Moors, Heaths and Mountains) and is not shy of combining classics such as excerpts from W H Hudson’s A Shepherd’s Life with pieces from breakthrough writers such as On Class and the Countryside by Anita Sethi.

For me, personally, part of the joy of this was the mix of the familiar, well-loved tales (and…

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Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

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