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Architecture, Homes & Gardens Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

The Future of Gardens by Mark Lane

Review by Annabel Melville House’s ‘Futures’ series are short pocket-sized paperbacks that explore their subjects in essay format. I’ve previously reviewed two others for Shiny – The Future of Trust…

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Shiny New Books May 15, 2025
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

This Volcanic Isle: The Violent Processes that Forged the British Landscape, by Robert Muir-Wood

Review by Liz Dexter We now realize that throughout the past 66 million years, this land has been far from quiescent. It has been split by magma-filled cracks, wracked by…

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Shiny New Books October 29, 2024
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Birds, Beasts and Bedlam: Turning My Farm into an Ark for Lost Species by Ben Gow

Review by Liz Dexter If you wish to bludgeon badgers or beavers or remove peregrine falcons and hen harrier chicks from their nests, a way can be found. If you…

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Shiny New Books October 22, 2024
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt

Review by Peter Reason Ghost Lake is a paleolithic, extinct lake that lies between the Yorkshire Wolds and Scarborough. In prehistoric times it was a real lake, the centre of…

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Shiny New Books September 24, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction Travel & the World

Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain by Corinne Fowler

In expanding and resourcing public understandings of the countryside’s colonial past, we can tell our islands’ stories and address colonial legacies from a position of knowledge rather than fear. Corinne…

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Shiny New Books August 13, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Essays Non Fiction

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie 

Review by Peter Reason I am sitting under the old apple tree in our Orchard on a sunny summer afternoon, looking over the meadow grass swaying in the light breeze,…

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Shiny New Books July 25, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Deep Water: The World in the Ocean, by James Bradley

Review by Peter Reason James Bradley, the Australian novelist and essayist, chooses an apt epigraph from Arthur C. Clarke for his book: ‘How inappropriate to call this planet “Earth”, when…

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Shiny New Books June 11, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Human Origins: A Short History, by Sarah Wild

Review by Liz Dexter I have […] tried to highlight how much our understanding of human origins has changed – and continues to change – and how, in some ways,…

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Shiny New Books March 5, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wilderness by Alastair Humphreys

We have just this one tiny planet to live on, now and for the foreseeable future. We must care for it, and use its resources wisely, sustainability, and fairly. If…

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Shiny New Books February 13, 2024
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding Big and Small, by Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell

Reviewed by Liz Dexter Even if the ‘Rewilding your Garden’ chapter seems the only one of practical use to you – or, indeed, if you only have a window box…

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Shiny New Books December 7, 2023
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

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…

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Shiny New Books September 12, 2023
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Essays Non Fiction Travel & the World

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…

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Shiny New Books May 24, 2023
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction Science & Technology Translated

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…

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Shiny New Books March 8, 2023
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction

The Accidental Detectorist by Nigel Richardson

Review by Julie Barham If you are interested in the process of finding objects from the past, this book, subtitled “Uncovering an Underground Obsession” will probably draw you in with…

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Shiny New Books March 2, 2023
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

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…

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Shiny New Books February 7, 2023
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

The Secret Life of Fungi: Discoveries from a Hidden World by Aliya Whiteley

Review by Liz Dexter Aliya Whiteley writes about the natural world in essays and fiction, grew up in North Devon and now lives in West Sussex, both rural areas replete…

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Shiny New Books October 13, 2022
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction Philosophy Relligion

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…

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Shiny New Books February 1, 2022
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction

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….

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Shiny New Books January 20, 2022
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden by Benedict Macdonald & Nicholas Gates

Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Bristol friends and BBC colleagues Ben Macdonald and Nick Gates set out to chronicle a year in the life of a traditional Herefordshire orchard that has…

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Shiny New Books November 9, 2021
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction

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…

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Shiny New Books November 2, 2021
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year Through Japan’s 72 Seasons by Lev Parikian

Review by Liz Dexter “For Japan’s lotus blossom, praying mantis and bear, we have bramble, wood louse and urban fox” Lev Parikian, a writer, birdwatcher and conductor, had already started…

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Shiny New Books October 19, 2021
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Biography & Memoir, Diaries Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction

Two nature memoirs set in the New Forest: Goshawk Summer by James Aldred & The Circling Sky by Neil Ansell

By Rebecca Foster Two recent memoirs have shone a spotlight on the fauna and management strategies of the New Forest, a place my Hampshire-raised husband and I have often visited…

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Shiny New Books September 28, 2021
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Ecology & Environment, Natural World Non Fiction Science & Technology

The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars, by Simon Morden

Review by Annabel Who hasn’t been enthralled by the idea of there being ‘Life on Mars’ even if said life ends up as the first humans to visit the red…

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Shiny New Books September 14, 2021
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Architecture, Homes & Gardens Ecology & Environment, Natural World History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology Non Fiction

A Tomb With a View by Peter Ross

Reviewed by Gill Davies Just a few days ago my partner and fellow Shiny reviewer Basil Ransome Davies found a new walk to do in these times of Covid-inspired local…

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Shiny New Books August 10, 2021
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