Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood

PRAISE FOR ADAM NICOLSON’S LIFE BETWEEN THE TIDES ‘Miraculous … Effortlessly, in deft, sure and delightful prose, he segues through species, science and art to present tidal nature as a microcosm. The result is an utterly fascinating glimpse of a watery world we only thought we knew’ Philip Hoare ‘A beautiful, powerful story of how we understand the unfolding change of the shore. This is a remarkable and powerful book, the rarest of things, both a call-to-arms and a call-to-pause and truly look. Nicolson is unique as a writer, happy soaked to the skin on the shoreline and happy unweaving skeins of philosophy. I loved it’ Edmund de Waal ‘Pure joy. From the ecology of a sandhopper to the cosmic pull of the tides Adam Nicolson takes us paddling into the pools of our own nature … a dazzling, kaleidoscopic exploration into the meaning of life itself’ Isabella Tree ‘A fascinating guide to all things littoral: a natural history of the rockpool that teems with life … Endlessly interesting, its wonders unfurl, fractal-like, the more closely you examine it’ Cal Flyn ‘The man who finds wonder in a winkle … Remarkable … In Nicolson’s hands the intertidal zone is shown to be rich and revelatory … It is as lyrical, learned and rambunctiously eccentric as his previous work … For a book so focused on non-human life, it is luminously humane’ The Times ‘Exquisite … A bravura act of writing … This uniquely and terribly moving book is great literature indeed – reaches beyond itself to speak to us of the most profound and essential things’ Alex Preston, Observer ‘One of our finest writers of non-fiction … Nicolson’s overarching theme in this book … goes to the very heart of what ecology is … the great pleasure of this book is that he does not allow the specifics of his enquiries to keep him from probing the big questions’ Philip Marsden, Spectator