The countryside, country life: general interest

Showing all 12 results

  • Birds as individuals

    £16.99

    Birds as individuals

    Enter the secret lives of Britain’s ordinary garden birds and the brilliant, unconventional woman who opened her doors to them. In the late 1930s, Len Howard packed up her life in London, bought a plot of land in Sussex and built herself a little house there. This was to be Bird Cottage, a place where the doors of the house were open to the birds of the garden – great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds, willow warblers and many others. Len lived the rest of her life alongside her bird neighbours, with some sleeping in her bedroom and many flitting in and out all day long. This is the book she wrote about the birds – a study not just of their behaviour but their individual personalities. We learn about their intelligence, emotional lives, and characters, their capacity for play and humour, the range of their song, their likes and dislikes, and their bond with Len.

    £16.99
  • Bob the robin

    £16.99

    Bob the robin

    In 2019, Tony Putman was working as a gardener in Edenbridge, Kent, when he noticed a bold robin sitting on a branch of an old plum tree. The robin glanced in his direction as he approached, but he didn’t move, so Tony grabbed his camera and took a photo. This would be the first of hundreds of photos that Tony would take of Bob the robin – and the start of an extraordinary friendship that would last for years. As Tony shared his pictures on his social media account, Putman and Robin, he witnessed an outpouring the love – not just for Bob, but for robins everywhere, who populate our gardens with song and movement even on the direst winter days. In this book, Tony shares his touching journey with Bob, and tells the story of our unwavering affection for these magnificent creatures.

    £16.99
  • Christmas on the farm

    £10.99

    Christmas on the farm

    Farmer and ‘Countryfile’ presenter Adam Henson has spent his whole life on Bemborough farm – over 50 winters and Christmases. During that time, the troughs have frozen over, snow has fallen so thickly riding shire horses out to the fields has been the only option, puppies have been found under the Christmas tree – and crises out in the world have almost brought the farm to a close. Christmas for a farmer takes a different shape to everyone else’s, because the animals always have to come first. So settle down – ideally by a fireside and with a cup of something hot – to hear the tales that have defined festivity for the Henson family, and the turbulent times that have ensured Christmas is now more important than ever for Adam and his loved ones.

    £10.99
  • England

    £25.00

    England

    Our countryside is iconic: a series of distinctive habitats that unite to create a landscape that is unique for the rich diversity of our flora and fauna. In ‘England’, his most magisterial book to date, John Lewis-Stempel explores each in turn, taking us from coast to moor, from downs to field, from the park to the village to create a vivid living portrait of our natural history. In his trademark lyrical prose, Lewis-Stempel reveals the hidden workings of each habitat: the clear waters and dragonflies; the bluebells, badgers and stag beetles; wild thyme; granite cliffs; rock pools and sandy beaches; red deer standing at ancient oaks; the wayside flowers of the lane; hedgehogs and hares; and snow on the high peak.

    £25.00
  • Footpaths

    £15.99

    Footpaths

    Lavishly illustrated throughout, this is the fascinating history of Britain’s unique patchwork of footpaths – the priceless ‘rights of way’ that have enriched the lives of millions.

    £15.99
  • Land smart

    £20.00

    Land smart

    We need land for so many of humanity’s growing needs, such as food, renewable energy, carbon storage and housing. Traditionally, we’ve stolen it from nature, but this has led to a mounting toll of extinction and pollution that is now punishing us. So, as there’s no land left to take, how do we get more from the same, or preferably less. Tom Heap, a presenter on BBC TV’s Countryfile, Radio 4’s new Rare Earth series and the anchor of The Climate Show on Sky News, tours the British countryside meeting the farmers, scientists, conservationists and even warehouse managers who are solving the most pressing challenges facing our countryside and the world. If we use land cleverly it can give both humanity and nature the space to thrive on just the one planet. If not, we’re in trouble.

    £20.00
  • Raising hare

    £18.99

    Raising hare

    Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me. When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival. ‘Raising Hare’ chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild.

    £18.99
  • The Book of Trespass

    £9.99

    The Book of Trespass

    The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92% of the land and 97% of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day. ‘The Book of Trespass’ takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access. By trespassing the land of the media magnates, Lords, politicians and private corporations that own England, Nick Hayes argues that the root of social inequality is the uneven distribution of land.

    £9.99
  • The new rector

    £9.99

    The new rector

    When Peter Harris arrives in Turnham Malpas as the new rector, he finds the villagers welcoming but set in their ways. Then a gruesome murder points to a killer in their midst. Peter’s role is crucial but he is wrestling with his own private hell.

    £9.99
  • The power and the glory

    £25.00

    The power and the glory

    In the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyond their reach in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand-in-hand with duty and honour. This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side-by-side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with aristocratic society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line and self-made millionaires who had been raised in the slums of Manchester and Birmingham. ‘The Power and the Glory’ explores the country house during this golden age, when Britain ruled over a quarter of the world’s population, when its stately homes were at their most opulent and when, for the privileged few, life in the country house was the best life of all.

    £25.00
  • Under the changing skies

    £20.00

    Under the changing skies

    For over a century, The Guardian’s ‘Country Diary’ has published the nation’s most celebrated writers of natural history as they capture the essence of the British countryside. From Yorkshire to Belfast, Orkney to Cumbria, and Gwynedd to the Scottish Highlands, exquisitely written and softly observed snapshots emerge – of fishes lurking in dusky pools, of age-old trees beneath deep blue skies, of lives being lived alongside the ebbs and flows of the natural world. Bringing together the finest contributions to the column from recent years, ‘Under the Changing Skies’ is an essential companion for all those with a deep love for the British countryside, charting its subtle changes over the course of the seasons.

    £20.00
  • Windswept

    £10.99

    Windswept

    Windswept is a wonderful work, prose painted in bold, bright strokes like a Scottish Colourist’s canvas’ ROBERT MACFARLANE

    ‘An instant classic of British nature-writing’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

    £10.99