
Shortlisted for the 2015 Thwaites Wainwright Prize
- In a single twelve-month cycle of daily writings Mark Cocker explores his relationship to the East Anglian landscape, to nature & to all the living things around him. The separate entries are characterised by close observation, depth of experience, & a profound awareness of seasonal change, both within in each distinct year &, more alarmingly, over the longer period, as a result of the changing climate. The writing is concise, magical, inspiring. Cocker describes all the wildlife in the village
- not just birds, but plants, trees, mammals, hoverflies, moths, butterflies, bush crickets, grasshoppers, ants & bumblebees. The book explores how these other species are as essential to our sense of genuine well-being & to our feelings of rootedness as any other kind of fellowship. A celebration of the wonder that lies in our everyday experience, Cocker`s book emphasises how Claxton is as much a state of mind as it is a place. Above all else, it is a manifesto for the central importance of the local in all human activity.