Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s hidden histories, by Amitav Ghosh
Review by Peter Reason The term ‘narco state’ usually refers to those countries whose economy has been taken over by the cultivation of the opium poppy and the criminal gangs…
Landscapes of Silence: From Childhood to the Arctic, by Hugh Brody
Review by Peter Reason On the first page of Landscapes of Silence is a list of the many words for snow in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit hunters and…
The Last Whale by Chris Vick
Review by Peter Reason The Last Whale is a fiction book for teens and young adults that covers serious themes in an engaging story. The narrative threads together tragedy and…
Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World: Essays, by Barry Lopez
Review by Peter Reason The late Barry Lopez is regarded by many as the doyen of travel and nature writers – although he and many others dislike these terms, preferring…
Darkness Manifesto: How light pollution threatens the ancient rhythms of life, by Johan Eklöf
Translated by Elizabeth DeNoma Review by Peter Reason I leave my front door late one evening and walk along the driveway we share with our neighbours towards the narrow unlit…
Fen, Bog and Swamp: A short history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis, by Annie Proulx
Review by Peter Reason I used to keep my little yacht Coral, companion of many voyages and pilgrimages, on trot moorings on the Cattewater in Plymouth. On the further side…
Jungle Nama: A story of the Sundarban & The Living Mountain: A fable for our times, by Amitav Ghosh
Reviews by Peter Reason On Christmas day my elder son gave me a copy of The Living Mountain, while my younger son a copy of Jungle Nama. They both know…
Nemesis, My Friend: Journeys through turning times by Jay Griffiths
Review by Peter Reason Nemesis is usually seen as the goddess of retribution, even of revenge, of implacable justice with no mercy, the avenger of crime and punisher of hubris….
This Sacred Life: Humanity’s place in a wounded world by Norman Wirzba
Review by Peter Reason What does it mean to see the world, and life on Earth, as sacred? How might this change our approach to life? These are questions that…
The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh
Review by Peter Reason When I was a small child at primary school, we celebrated Empire Day. Children were invited—expected—to take a Union Flag to school and wave it around….
The Dawn of Everything: A new history of humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Review by Peter Reason This book offers a revision of our understanding of human cultural history, and so opens possibilities for different, maybe more creative and liberating, arrangements for contemporary…
Smoke Hole: Looking to the wild in the time of the Spyglass by Martin Shaw
Review by Peter Reason Martin Shaw is a mythologist, storyteller, and wilderness rites-of-passage guide, a teacher of mythic imagination. Should you encounter him at a workshop, you will most likely…
On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason
Translated by Lytton Smith Review by Peter Reason This book focuses on two things that are changing beyond recognition in this era of rapid ecological change: Time and Water. Time…
The Nightingale: Notes on a songbird, by Sam Lee
Review by Peter Reason Sam Lee is a renowned song collector, interpreter, and singer of folk songs from Britain and Ireland; he has an abiding interest in wilderness studies and…
Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert
Review by Peter Reason Elizabeth Kolbert is a celebrated American journalist, staff writer for the New Yorker. Her work focuses unflinchingly on the ecological challenges of our time, as can…
Heavy Light: A Journey through Madness, Mania and Healing by Horatio Clare
Reviewed by Peter Reason It was on a family skiing holiday that Horatio Clare finally went mad. This was the culmination of a period of high activity and stress, coupled…
Biography & Memoir, Diaries
Ecology & Environment, Natural World
History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology
Non Fiction
Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Review by Peter Reason I have been totally absorbed in Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Thin Places since it arrived in the morning mail and I read in the Preface: ‘The right…
The Fresh and the Salt: The Story of the Solway by Ann Lingard
Reviewed by Peter Reason When I was a small boy—and this memory must reach back to around 1950—I played with a wooden puzzle made up of the historic counties of…
The Frozen River: Seeking Silence in the Himalaya by James Crowden
Reviewed by Peter Reason Opening this book, I am immediately drawn in: ‘Silence, snow and solitude have got hold of me and will not let me go. I am possessed…
Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman by Rebecca Tamás
Review by Peter Reason. This elegant and engaging collection of seven essays by poet and critic Rebecca Tamás—her first prose collection—is beautifully produced as a slim volume by the independent…
Riders on the Storm: The climate crisis and the survival of being by Alastair McIntosh
Review by Peter Reason Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish Quaker, peace, community and environmental writer and campaigner, maybe best described as a spiritual activist. He is a fellow and former…
Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures by Merlin Sheldrake
Review by Peter Reason Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake has been greeted with much enthusiasm, not least by Robert Macfarlane in the New Yorker. I am sure I am not…
Sensuous Knowledge: A black feminist approach for everyone by Minna Salami
Review by Peter Reason Minna Salami is a Nigerian and Finnish social critic, founder of the MsAfropolitan blog, who draws on Africa-centric and feminist perspectives to offer a more inclusive…
Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils by David Farrier
Review by Peter Reason In 2013, a spring storm uncovered, on the shores of Norfolk, the oldest traces of humanity discovered outside Africa: fossil footprints made by early humans 850,000…
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