Meadowland

Hopeful in the light of our being told that nature has all but vanished; it clearly hasn't in some places. This book is a year's almanac of animals wild and domesticated, of life and death. Quotes my old favourite John Stewart-Collis and also Edward Thomas. Some mornings I can hear all the birds of Gloucestershire as well.

If you want to read a book about a piece of land where the writer is truly in love with that piece of land then this is the book for you. So many people will probably come across a meadow and see only a field, so few are going to see things through the eyes of John Lewis-Stempel. His knowledge of all the types of animals, flowers, bugs and even grasses is incredible. Whenever I read a nature book I try to remember one thing and then go and identify it in the wild, this time around I am focusing on the awesome sounding "Wolf Spider" I get them in my garden and will now be able to identify them as I save my wife and eldest daughter from being eaten alive by one of them.

You can't help but compare this book with Roger Deakin's Notes from Walnut Tree Farm and whilst they are a similar blend of nature, musings, poetry and life on the farm each author has such a strong voice they feel so different. Deakin wrote a lot of his book whilst sat at his desk indoors, John Lewis-Stempel is outside in the meadow for the whole of the book. The level of detail in this book is greater too, who knew there was so much life in a cow pat.

Blog post is here> felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/11/17/meadowland-the-private-life-of-an-english-field-by-john-lewis-stempel/

I enjoyed parts of this, but other parts were not to my taste - perhaps I just don't appreciate killing things. Way too much quoting at length of poetry also.

Wonderful nature writing that brought me back to all the books I loved as a child: Gerald Durrell, James Herriot, Richard Adams and Joy Adamson.
He writes about the year, from month to month, of the intimate life of one meadow on the border of Wales and England, not far from where I grew up and rambled around in the countryside.
He has the eyes of a child, the inclinations of a farmer and the patience of a old-time naturalist.
This isn't at all fluffy; sometimes nature "is red in tooth and claw"
All in all a very satisfying little book.