
Claxton
Field Notes from a Small Planet
Mark Cocker(Author)
Jonathan Cape (Publisher)
Published on 2. October 2014
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-224-09965-3 (ISBN)
Description
Shortlisted for the 2014 Thwaites Wainwright Prize
Shortlisted for the 2014 New Angle Prize
Shortlisted for the 2015 Society of Biology Book Award
'After Mark Cocker's glorious book, you will never look at a blackberry bush the same way again.'
Philip Hoare, New Statesman
In a single twelve-month cycle of daily writings Mark Cocker explores his relationship to the East Anglian landscape, to nature and to all the living things around him. The separate entries are characterised by close observation, depth of experience, and a profound awareness of seasonal change, both within in each distinct year and, 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 and bumblebees. The book explores how these other species are as essential to our sense of genuine well-being and 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.
Shortlisted for the 2014 New Angle Prize
Shortlisted for the 2015 Society of Biology Book Award
'After Mark Cocker's glorious book, you will never look at a blackberry bush the same way again.'
Philip Hoare, New Statesman
In a single twelve-month cycle of daily writings Mark Cocker explores his relationship to the East Anglian landscape, to nature and to all the living things around him. The separate entries are characterised by close observation, depth of experience, and a profound awareness of seasonal change, both within in each distinct year and, 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 and bumblebees. The book explores how these other species are as essential to our sense of genuine well-being and 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.
Reviews / Votes
After Mark Cocker's glorious book, you will never look at a blackberry bush the same way again. -- Philip Hoare * New Statesman * A nature journal full of beautiful, delicate observation * Guardian * A beautifully-written account of one man's passion for the natural world * Daily Mail * If your eye has ever been caught by a moth, owl, jay or ash tree, Claxton has something new to tell about it, about Britain, and about life - which is an infinite compilation of exquisite detail. -- Horatio Clare, 5 stars * Daily Telegraph * To be astonished by nature, look no further than Claxton. * Spectator *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
445 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-224-09965-3 (9780224099653)
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
10/2014
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€10.99
Available for download
Person
Mark Cocker is an author, naturalist and environmental activist whose eleven 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 Anglia Book Award in 2019.