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The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood

£9.99

This is the story of one wood, representative of all the small woods of our landscape and of the sanctuary they provide. From January through to December, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons in exquisite, lyric prose, as the cuckoo flits through the green shade and in the silence and the wind of winter. He explores from the roots of the oak to its tips, under the black, spicy leaf mould of the woodland floor and up into the mysterious canopy. He offers a unique account of the animals that inhabit this refuge: the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice and the tawny owl, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from the first page to the last.

In stock

Description

‘BRITAIN’S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER’ – THE TIMES

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’ from ‘indisputably, one of the best nature-writers of his generation’ (Country Life)

Written in diary format, The Wood is the story of English woodlands as they change with the seasons. Lyrical and informative, steeped in poetry and folklore, The Wood inhabits the mind and touches the soul.

For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed Cockshutt wood, a particular wood – three and half acres of mixed woodland in south west Herefordshire – that stands as exemplar for all the small woods of England. John coppiced the trees and raised cows and pigs who roamed free there.

This is the diary of the last year, by which time he had come to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks, and to know all the animals that lived there – the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice, the tawny owl – and where the best bluebells grew. For many fauna and flora, woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It proves a sanctuary for John too.

To read The Wood is to be amongst its trees as the seasons change, following an easy path until, suddenly the view is broken by a screen of leaves, or your foot catches on a root, or a bird startles overhead. This is a wood you will never want to leave.

Read a sample here

Additional information

Weight 0.211 kg
Dimensions 19.8 × 12.7 × 1.8 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

293

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

577.3094245 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K