Where have all the rabbits gone? Ruth Pavey mourns the loss of wildlife from our childhood as rural environment is continuously put under threat Ruth Pavey’s book is an engaging follow-up memoir to A Wood Of One’s Own Book notes changes she has observed since buying her wood at auction in 1999 She mourns the … Read more
WHAT BOOK would author Santa Montefiore take to a desert island? By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 22:45 BST, 15 July 2021 | Updated: 22:45 BST, 15 July 2021 Author Santa Montefiore (pictured) would take Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth to a desert island …are you reading now? Sue Monk Kidd’s The Book Of Longings. This … Read more
HOW DO YOU FIGHT A HORSE-SIZED DUCK? by William Poundstone (Oneworld £16.99, 320pp) Jack is looking at Ann. Ann is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? If, like me and virtually everyone else who hears this question, you replied ‘It depends on … Read more
NATURE THE WOOD AGE by Roland Ennos (William Collins £20, 336 pp) If your surname is Cooper, Carpenter, Wheelwright, Wainwright, Shipwright, Bowyer, Fletcher, Turner, Bowler, Sawyer or Forester, then one of your ancestors worked with hand tools and wood. One thing this wonderful book reminds you of is the resourcefulness of our forebears, who grew … Read more
NATURE THE NIGHTINGALE by Sam Lee (Century £14.99, 240pp) At 10.45pm on May, 19, 1924, BBC radio announcer Rex Palmer interrupted the Saturday evening broadcast by dance band The Savoy Orpheans to whisk listeners into a Surrey woodland, where cellist Beatrice Harrison had been joined by a nightingale. In those days, just two years after … Read more
…are you reading now? The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. It’s his second psychological thriller, the follow-up to his massive international bestseller, The Silent Patient. I’m halfway through and gripped. So far there’s a murder, a grieving therapist and a Cambridge University college that has many secrets hidden behind its beautiful, historical facade. If you haven’t … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK TAKING ON GRAVITY by Richard Browning (Bantam £20, 256pp) Richard Browning found himself standing in a Wiltshire farmyard in 2016 with jet engines the size of hairdryers attached to his arms and legs by flexible poles taken from a pop-up tent. The engines were controlled with a trigger taken from an … Read more
Juicy tales of the world’s smelliest fruit! Poet whose husband begged her to throw away a durian, examines the most challenging produce to grow and cook U.S. poet Kate Lebo is the author of two cookery books about fruit pies Reveals the most difficult to grow and challenging fruits to cook in a new book … Read more
BIOGRAPHY DISNEY’S BRITISH GENTLEMAN: THE LIFE AND CAREER OF DAVID TOMLINSON by Nathan Morley (History Press £20, 255 pp) Where this country excels is in its reliable character actors — Ian Carmichael, John Le Mesurier, Richard Wattis, Robert Morley and, among others, David Tomlinson, whom Noel Coward unforgettably described as looking like ‘a very old … Read more
QUICK READS By Sally Morris for the Daily Mail Published: 22:01 BST, 20 May 2021 | Updated: 22:01 BST, 20 May 2021 This year is the 15th anniversary of the Quick Reads literacy initiative which targets the nearly nine million people in this country who find reading difficult, feel too busy to read a full-length … Read more