Black Swan The Wild Life. A Year of Living on Wild Food Lewis-Stempel John

What really goes on in the long grass? • Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren,the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last

How does our diet affect our skin? What makes the skin age? And why can't we tickle ourselves? • Providing a cover for our delicate and intricate bodies, the skin is our largest, fastest growing and yet least understood organ. We see it, touch it and live in it every day. It's a habitat for a mesmerizingly complex world of micro-organisms and physical functions that are vital to our health and our survival. It's also one of the first things people see about us and is crucial to our sense of identity. Our skin plays a central role in our lives. And yet how much do we really know about it? • Through the lenses of science, sociology and history, Dr Monty Lyman leads us on a journey across our most underrated and unexplored organ. Examining our microbiome, our love of tattoos and whether or not beauty products really work, he reveals how the skin is far stranger and more complex than you've ever imagined

From the Paleozoic volcanoes that stained its soil, to the Saxons who occupied it, to the Tudors who traded its wool, to the Land Girls of wartime, John Lewis-Stempel charts a sweeping, lyrical history of Woodston: the quintessential English farm • With his combined skills of farmer and historian, Lewis-Stempel digs deep into written records, the memories of relatives, and the landscape itself to celebrate the farmland his family have been bound to for millennia. Through Woodston's life, we feel the joyful arrival of oxen ploughing; we see pigs rootling in the medieval apple orchard; and take in the sharp, drowsy fragrance of hops on Edwardian air. He draws upon his wealth of historical knowledge and his innate sense of place to create a passionate, fascinating biography of farming in England

Traditional ploughland is disappearing. Seven cornfield flowers have become extinct in the last twenty years. Once abundant, the corn bunting and the lapwing are on the Red List. The corncrake is all but extinct in England. And the hare is running for its life • Written in exquisite prose, The Running Hare tells the story of the wild animals and plants that live in and under our ploughland, from the labouring microbes to the patrolling kestrel above the corn, from the linnet pecking at seeds to the seven-spot ladybird that eats the aphids that eat the crop. It recalls an era before open-roofed factories and silent, empty fields, recording the ongoing destruction of the unique, fragile, glorious ploughland that exists just down the village lane

Пруды: небольшие водоемы, как естественного, так и искусственного происхождения, где обитают удивительные, разнообразные формы жизни. Пруды определяют наше детство: лягушачью икру, золотых рыбок, кормление уток, а также нашу деревенскую жизнь, наши фермы, наш ландшафт. И они многослойны - от карпа, кружащего у дна, до водяных лодочников, лысухи и птиц-стрекоз над головой. В книге "Тихая вода. Глубинная жизнь пруда" Джон Льюис-Стемпел погружается в темные глубины, как в буквальном, так и в переносном смысле, чтобы исследовать тихие воды британской сельской местности в течение каждого месяца года • Книга на английском языке • Great nature writing needs to be informative, detailed, accurate, lyrical, and, above all, to instil a sense of gratitude and wonder

"Лес. Жизнь и времена Кокшатт Вуда", написанный в формате дневника, - это история английских лесов, меняющихся в зависимости от времени года. Лиричный и информативный, пропитанный поэзией и фольклором, Лес населяет разум и трогает душу • В течение четырех лет Джон Льюис-Стемпель управлял Кокшатт-вудом, особым лесом - тремя с половиной акрами смешанного леса на юго-западе Херефордшира, - который является образцом для всех небольших лесов Англии. Джон посадил деревья и разводил коров и свиней, которые свободно бродили там • Это дневник за прошлый год, за который он успел изучить его от корней бука до верхушек дубов и узнать всех животных, которые там обитали - лису, фазанов, лесных мышей, неясыть - и где лучше всего росли колокольчики. Для многих представителей фауны и флоры леса, подобные Кокшатту, являются последним убежищем

The January Man is the story of a year of walks that was inspired by a song, Dave Goulder's 'The January Man'. Month by month, season by season and region by region, Christopher Somerville walks the British Isles, following routes that continually bring his father to mind • As he travels the country - from the winter floodlands of the River Severn to the lambing pastures of Nidderdale, the towering seabird cliffs on the Shetland Isle of Foula in June and the ancient oaks of Sherwood Forest in autumn - he describes the history, wildlife, landscapes and people he encounters, down back lanes and old paths, in rain and fair weather • This exquisitely written account of the British countryside not only inspires us to don our boots and explore the 140,000 miles of footpaths across the British Isles, but also illustrates how, on long-distance walks, we can come to an understanding of ourselves and our fellow walkers

While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns • Set over the course of one year of Johnsey’s life, The Thing About December breathes with his grief, bewilderment, humour and agonizing self-doubt. This is a heart-twisting tale of a lonely man struggling to make sense of a world moving faster than he is • Donal Ryan’s award-winning debut, The Spinning Heart, garnered unprecedented acclaim, and The Thing About December confirms his status as one of the best writers of his generation

This was how I heard the most important story of my life, the thing that decided me, the story that determined who I was in the end • As snow begins to fall outside, two strangers meet by chance in a bar. She is trying to make sense of a life shaken by heartbreak and ruined dreams. He is on a desperate quest to find something he lost in his youth • From the blustery cliffs of Dover to the confines of a nuclear bunker; from the courtroom witness box to the West End stage, he flits from one life to another, never able to stand still • Extraordinary though his story is, the secret she is keeping is even more surprising, and will take them to a place neither of them - or you - expected • From the bestselling author of Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain comes this captivating novel about love, abandonment, and the power of stories to help us find our way in the world

When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved - plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naivete, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Now her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her co-star, Harrison Ford • With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time – and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty

Exquisitely observed and wickedly playful, The Waiter is a novel for lovers of food, wine, and of European sensibilities, but also for anyone who spends time in restaurants, on either side of the service • Welcome to The Hills, Oslo's most esteemed restaurant, an institution stewed in tradition and clinging to the faded grandeur of old Europe • A neurotic waiter tends to the desires of his clientele. Aristocrats and artistes, wealthy widows and roguish entrepreneurs, he observes all their dramas with a wit as sharp as a filleting knife • At table ten sits the impeccable Mr Graham, impatiently awaiting a special guest. When at last she arrives - young, beautiful, mysterious - she will prove to be a challenging new flavour, threatening both our waiter's nerves, and the delicately balanced ingredients of the room

William Cody grows up surrounded by his father's tales of Buffalo Bill, to whom he is distantly related, and his fantasies of the Wild West • Though he escapes his heritage by fleeing abroad and starting a new life for himself, he finds that he is always drawn back to England and to his ancestry • When his father proposes that together they should recreate Buffalo Bill's stage show, "The Congress of Rough Riders of the World" for a contemporary audience, William refuses to have any part of it. When tragedy strikes, however, it is to his father that he must eventually return