March 20, 2008

Birds in the House

At the Bookslut blog, Jessica Crispin links to her review of some nature-writing titles with the obligatory disclaimer:

As an urban dweller, most days the only nature I encounter is the mouse that lives behind my bookshelf ...

But by the end of Roger Deakin's Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees, she continues,

I too wanted to sleep in a house where birds and bats are allowed to fly freely through the rafters.

Here is the book's editorial blurb:

From the walnut tree at his Suffolk home, Roger Deakin embarks upon a quest that takes him through Britain, across Europe, to Central Asia and Australia, in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with wood and with trees. Meeting woodlanders of all kinds, he lives in shacks and cabins, builds hazel benders, and hunts bush-plums with aboriginal women. At once autobiography, history, a traveller's tale and a work of natural history, "Wildwood" is a lyrical and fiercely intimate evocation of the spirit of trees: in nature, in our souls, in our culture, and in our lives.

Coming as I do from a line of firewood contractors, furniture makers, and foresters, I think I need to read this one.

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