
Bird Cottage
Eva Meijer(Author)
Pushkin Press
Published on 30. August 2018
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-78227-393-6 (ISBN)
Description
I want to find out how they behave when they're free.
Len Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life and loves behind, retire to the English countryside and devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds.
Moving to a small cottage in Sussex, she wrote two bestselling books, astonishing the world with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows and other birds that lived nearby, flew freely in and out of her windows, and would even perch on her shoulder as she typed.
This moving novel imagines the story of this remarkable woman's decision to defy society's expectations, and the joy she drew from her extraordinary relationship with the natural world.
Len Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life and loves behind, retire to the English countryside and devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds.
Moving to a small cottage in Sussex, she wrote two bestselling books, astonishing the world with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows and other birds that lived nearby, flew freely in and out of her windows, and would even perch on her shoulder as she typed.
This moving novel imagines the story of this remarkable woman's decision to defy society's expectations, and the joy she drew from her extraordinary relationship with the natural world.
Reviews / Votes
I tend my herd and flock by day so I have to read into the night; I cannot put it down * Rosamund Young, author of The Secret of Life of Cows * A convincing account of total dedication and self-belief, and there's beauty and joy in Len's strange life... entertaining and thought-provoking * Guardian * Truly original... There's a sense of birdlike lightness and agility about this episodic, elliptical novel * Daily Mail * The author's fluid, seemingly weightless prose is perfectly matched to the birds she describes... This beautiful creation will be a source of great pleasure for birders and readers alike * Country Life * A delightful, poignant tale * Saga Magazine * A celebration of a life spent immersed in nature * Town & Country * Fascinating and affecting, a portrait of a woman determined to follow her passion come what may * European Literature Network * Bewitching... will make you want to throw away your Oyster pass and move to a remote cottage... Read it to de-stress * The Lady * In this perfect match of writer and subject, Eva Meijer brilliantly evokes the precious, vibrant and complex society Len Howard shared with songbirds at her cottage in Sussex. This beautiful novel is haunted by loss -- of individual birds, as well as the spectre of species collapse, and the vanishing of entire life worlds * Sue Donaldson, author of Zoopolis * In the end all the puzzling, hard work of the translation process vanishes into the ether, and only the text remains: words that weave a story beyond both Dutch and English... I hope they will resonate just as much with their new readers as they did with their Dutch audience, and then with me * Asymptote Journal * You totally identify with Howard, making her passion your own. It isn't Howard who is eccentric, but people who live without birds * Tzum * Read this book to totally unwind. It will open your eyes and encourage you to go out and see the birds * De Wereld Draait Door * An eye-opening novel. What makes Bird Cottage so appealing is the quiet serenity that Eva Meijer displays * De Volkskrant * Mesmerising and moving * NRC Handelsblad * Both uplifting and deeply moving * Psychogeographic Review * I loved every word of this - I had great tits nesting in my garden last spring, and I think Len was right about every detail * East Sussex Living *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78227-393-6 (9781782273936)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Persons
Eva Meijer is a Dutch author, artist, singer, songwriter and philosopher. Her non-fiction study on animal Communication, Animal Languages, is forthcoming in English in 2019. Bird Cottage is her first novel to be translated into English, has been nominated for the BNG and Libris prizes in the Netherlands and is being translated into several languages. Eva Meijer was awarded the Halewijn Prize in 2017 for all of the books she has written so far.