How to Catch a Mole
And Find Yourself in Nature
Published on 4. April 2019
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-78730-124-5 (ISBN)
Description
Longlisted for the Wainwright Book Prize 2019
A calming, life-affirming book about the British countryside, the cycle of nature, solitude and contentment, by a brilliant new nature writer who spent time homeless as a young man, sleeping in the hedgerows he now knows so well.
Although common, moles are mysterious: their habits are inscrutable, they are anatomically bizarre, and they live completely alone. Marc Hamer has come closer to them than most, both through his long working life out in the Welsh countryside, and his experiences of rural homelessness as a boy.
Over the years, Marc has learned a great deal about these small, velvet creatures who live in the dark beneath us, and the myths that surround them, and his work has also led him to a wise and uplifting acceptance of the inevitable changes that we all face. In this beautiful and meditative book, Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment.
How to Catch a Mole is a gem of nature writing, beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, which celebrates living peacefully and finding wonder in the world around us.
A calming, life-affirming book about the British countryside, the cycle of nature, solitude and contentment, by a brilliant new nature writer who spent time homeless as a young man, sleeping in the hedgerows he now knows so well.
Although common, moles are mysterious: their habits are inscrutable, they are anatomically bizarre, and they live completely alone. Marc Hamer has come closer to them than most, both through his long working life out in the Welsh countryside, and his experiences of rural homelessness as a boy.
Over the years, Marc has learned a great deal about these small, velvet creatures who live in the dark beneath us, and the myths that surround them, and his work has also led him to a wise and uplifting acceptance of the inevitable changes that we all face. In this beautiful and meditative book, Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment.
How to Catch a Mole is a gem of nature writing, beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, which celebrates living peacefully and finding wonder in the world around us.
Reviews / Votes
From the first few words I knew I had encountered loving honesty and no one needs more than that. It is rare to encounter such respect and understanding of nature for herself. -- Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Life of Cows How To Catch A Mole is a beguiling mixture: part autobiography, part handbook, part travel book, part philosophical treatise. I'm happy to report that it succeeds on each level -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday * Not only a compelling meditation on the 'little gentleman in black velvet'...but also a fascinating, lyrical account of the loneliness and beauty of life on the margins, a memoir of vagrancy * Times Literary Supplement * This is a wonderful book about our relationship with the earth, with other animals and with our own troubled humanity. It has taught me a lot. I feel great love for it. -- Max Porter How to Catch a Mole is a beautiful, elegiac ode to a remarkable creature. It's also an exploration of Hamer's life as he approaches his sunset years. Each page is filled with wonder, love, regret, humility and a sense of wonder (and oneness) with nature. * Washington Post * [How To Catch a Mole] has the feel of an enduring classic. It is the testament of a man who has learnt to see, who has the nerve to interrogate his own annihilation and who...handles language superbly * Oldie * Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment. * Sunday Express * [Hamer] offers us some heart-rending images which linger in the mind long after you've closed the book * Daily Mail * Marc Hamer's uplifting writings shed some light on the velvety creatures burrowing beneath our countryside. * National Geographic * Marc Hamer's wonderful How To Catch A Mole took me completely by surprise. It certainly is a book aboutcatching moles but it is also a book of sound philosophy, poignant biography and a zen-like meditation on life and nature. Brilliant. * Caught By the River *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 204 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
379 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78730-124-5 (9781787301245)
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
04/2019
Vintage Digital
€14.99
Available for download
Person
Marc Hamer was born in the North of England and moved to Wales over thirty years ago. After spending a period homeless, then working on the railway, he returned to education and studied fine art in Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. He has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design and taught creative writing in a prison before becoming a gardener. Both his books, A Life in Nature; or How to Catch a Mole and Seed to Dust have been longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.