Footprints in the Woods: The Secret Life of Forest and Riverbank

Sir John Lister-Kaye's latest book reveals the real, bloody world of nature's natural-born killers. [ . . . ] In the course of more than 50 years, he has become one of Britain's most celebrated nature writers and an expert on conservation * * The Times * * From pine martens to weasels, John Lister-Kaye's mesmerising new book reveals the true savagery of mustelids . . . Lister-Kaye's many expert, wide-eyed descriptions of their hunts - gleaned from thousands of hours of painstaking, superhumanly silent observation - bear both the unsentimentality of a lifelong naturalist and the eloquent punch of a superior thriller-writer. [He is] not only a marvellously lucid writer but also an unusually poetic one * * Telegraph * * Spellbinding . . . Footprints In The Woods is a wonderfully beguiling read, much like a rapt, highly observant and yet leisurely wander through some wild woodland, with no particular aim in mind but so forgetful of your small, limited self, so happily lost in the wide world of nature, that you hear and see everything. As an evocation of the author's beloved Highlands it is second to none, and it does what all great nature writing should do: it makes you want to get out there yourself * * Mail on Sunday * * This book conjures otters, badgers, pine martens and weasels right onto the page, in language that is deft, vivid and alive -- JAY GRIFFITHS Lister-Kaye is the real thing: a peerless observer who is just as much part of the land as his beloved badgers. This, unusually, is nature writing that is actually about nature rather than the writer, and so it has the power and wisdom of the hills and forest. Marvellous -- CHARLES FOSTER, author of CRY OF THE WILD Sir John Lister-Kaye, a leading naturalist and conservationist, has a fine eye for detail and a poetic turn of phrase. [ . . . ] Mesmerising * * Simple Things * * A love letter to the otters, badgers, weasels and pine martens . . . and a reminder of the fragility of habitat and the beauty and variety we have to lose if we don't choose to actively protect it * * Yorkshire Reporter * * Praise for John Lister Kaye: Utterly charming and captivating * * Sunday Times * * If only we could all be as attentive to the life around us as John Lister-Kaye. No one writes as movingly, or with such transporting poetic skills, about encounters with wild creatures -- HELEN MACDONALD, author of H IS FOR HAWK Scotland's high priest of nature writing; it's charming and moving to wander along with him * * The Times * *