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Rather more history than I wanted, but once I got past that mammoth first section it was okay. His follow-up book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, is an easier read.

Beautifully written, but also decidedly Western in perspective, despite the setting and focus of a former aristocrat under house arrest in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. The strongest moments of the story for me were the passage of time and change in and around the hotel, as the main character exists as a man out of time, until forced to face change. The ending wasn't particularly satisfactory to me, simultaneously too neat and tidy while also being unsatisfactory.

I was immediately interested in this world and the magical people and creatures than live there. The main characters are compelling and interesting. It's an odd book, however, the pacing is wonky, and there isn't much character development for the main characters, even if the tertiary characters do learn in grow. It's definitely a bigger story that Claybourne intends to tell.

Guy Shrubsole's enthusiasm for the wild woods of Britain is apealing and contagious. I think he has a real point at how central these habitats are to the legend and myth of Britain, and how few tiny patches of those temperate rainforests are left. The big idea that I was left with, however, was how completely English domination (or arguably colonization) of Scotland or Wales reshaped the history of those communities, that farmers fight re-wilding and defend the ways of life that were originally imposed on them by the conquoring English. A places like Wales may identify with the yeoman sheep farmer, but that's only a ~150 year old tradition (created in large part by tax policy from David Lloyd George) and turns its back on the much longer history of Wales that included vast swaths of wild wood and different farming methods.