A Claxton Diary
Further Field Notes from a Small Planet
Published on 16. July 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-5291-1133-0 (ISBN)
Description
Another beautiful, revelatory country diary from one of the best nature writers in Britain.
'If you've never read Mark Cocker, then you must. His style is sharp, selfless, and wonderfully evocative, his knowledge deep and wide-ranging but lightly borne, his curiosity joyful and infectious.' Mail On Sunday, Books of the Year
For seventeen years, as part of his daily writerly routine, the author and naturalist Mark Cocker has taken a two-mile walk down to the river from his cottage on the edge of the Norfolk Broads National Park. Over the course of those 10,000 daily paces he has learnt the art of patience to observe a butterfly, a bird, flower, bee, deer, otter or fly and to take pleasure in all the other inhabitants of his parish, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
In turn these encounters have then been converted into literary epiphanies that are now a widely celebrated part of his work. In A Claxton Diary he has gathered some of the finest short essays that he has ever written on wildlife. They range over almost everything he can see, touch or smell, from the minute to the cosmic, from a strange micromoth called yellow-barred longhorn to that fiercest of winter storms the so-called 'Beast from the East'.
From the marvellous to the macabre, Cocker tries to capture nature without flinching and in its entirety. In so doing he provides us with a vision of an English country parish that for intimacy and precise detail is comparable with Gilbert White's diary on Selbourne. Above all he reminds us that we are all just members of one miraculous family, fashioned from sunlight and the dust from old stars.
'If you've never read Mark Cocker, then you must. His style is sharp, selfless, and wonderfully evocative, his knowledge deep and wide-ranging but lightly borne, his curiosity joyful and infectious.' Mail On Sunday, Books of the Year
For seventeen years, as part of his daily writerly routine, the author and naturalist Mark Cocker has taken a two-mile walk down to the river from his cottage on the edge of the Norfolk Broads National Park. Over the course of those 10,000 daily paces he has learnt the art of patience to observe a butterfly, a bird, flower, bee, deer, otter or fly and to take pleasure in all the other inhabitants of his parish, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
In turn these encounters have then been converted into literary epiphanies that are now a widely celebrated part of his work. In A Claxton Diary he has gathered some of the finest short essays that he has ever written on wildlife. They range over almost everything he can see, touch or smell, from the minute to the cosmic, from a strange micromoth called yellow-barred longhorn to that fiercest of winter storms the so-called 'Beast from the East'.
From the marvellous to the macabre, Cocker tries to capture nature without flinching and in its entirety. In so doing he provides us with a vision of an English country parish that for intimacy and precise detail is comparable with Gilbert White's diary on Selbourne. Above all he reminds us that we are all just members of one miraculous family, fashioned from sunlight and the dust from old stars.
Reviews / Votes
A spellbinding nature diary that's up there with the greatest... [Cocker] regularly follows up a beady description with a wild, glorious overview, followed by an astonishing fact or two... Hurrah for Mark Cocker! ***** * Mail on Sunday * Being a naturalist, Cocker's great strength is in the breadth of his senses: his essays seem to cover almost everything he has seen, heard or smelled in the land around his home. He writes clearly, and with a style that has a ring of poetry about it without being pretentious or precious... Spending time with his acutely observant essays will convince many readers that the Great Barrier Reef and vast jungles of Africa can be understood best only by first understanding the startling drama, diversity and complicated natural dynamics of a humble corner of Britain. * Spectator * If you've never read Mark Cocker, then you must. His style is sharp, selfless, and wonderfully evocative, his knowledge deep and wide-ranging but lightly borne, his curiosity joyful and infectious. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday, *Books of the Year* * If you can't get out to enjoy the spring weather, immerse yourself in the natural world with Mark Cocker... his writing transports you there. * Mail on Sunday * If you already know Mark Cocker's work, you'll need no persuading to buy this - if you don't, treat yourself to a very fine collection of nature essays. * Bird Watching, *Book of the Month* * A Claxton Diary is a collection of his finest essays written on wildlife and encounters with nature. * UK Press Syndication * [Cocker] has a dream-like poetic edge, a touch of surreality that tips over into gentle humour... Cocker's gift is that he can make you look - as he does - at blackbirds in a new way, or, shifting to the micro-scale, at ants bustling about in the cracks between paving slabs. -- Brian Morton * Times Literary Supplement * A master of short-form writing... Cocker combines forensic observation of minutiae with grander universal truths... Exquisite essential reading. -- Ben Hoare * BBC Wildlife * Wonderful. * The Simple Things * Mark Cocker is one of the many modern nature writers who I admire... and his latest book, A Claxton Diary, is as well written as all his others. -- Paul Cheney * Paul Cheney's Books of the Year *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
180 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5291-1133-0 (9781529111330)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2019
Vintage Digital
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Mark Cocker is an author and naturalist whose thirteen books include works of biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. His book Crow Country was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2008 and won the New Angle Prize for Literature in 2009. With the photographer David Tipling he published Birds and People in 2013, a massive survey described by the Times Literary Supplement as 'a major literary event as well as an ornithological one.' Our Place: Can We Save Britain's Wildlife Before It Is Too Late? was described by the Sunday Times as 'impassioned, expert and always beautifully written ... a sobering and magnificent work.' His most recent book, A Claxton Diary, won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2019.