Shrewdunnit: The Nature Files

In his latest book Conor Mark Jameson takes the reader on a journey of discovery of “everyday (or so we wished) nature” with an entertaining narrative style. The author weaves scientific facts within captivating anecdotes told with humour and empathy, and the result is a thoroughly enjoyable read that reminds us how we can be surprised and fascinated by even the most common or familiar patch of land. -- Daria Dadam * BTO About Birds * When I began this book, I promised myself I would read a bit each day; some hopes! I found myself enjoying it so much that I got through it in about three sittings. It is beautifully written, full of simple yet unerringly apt description and well laced with wit and wisdom. I can best describe it, I think, as a collection of essays, some already published but others not, penned by a man who, in another age, would be an essayist, not a mere writer of articles. Conor takes us through the year, grouping his shortish pieces by seasons and by months. The topics are wide-ranging and the subject matter is wildlife – this is not a book just about birds, although they feature prominently throughout. Occasionally we are taken to such far-flung places as the Seychelles or New Zealand, but most often the setting is at or around the author’s home patch in rural Bedfordshire. There we find Conor looking at everyday (well, almost) birds, beasts and plants, discovering new things, rediscovering the familiar and finding something at which to marvel in all of them. There is a sense of wonder about it all that makes you want to go out there and look again for yourself. There should be more books like this, where birds and the rest are enjoyed for what they are and are not reduced to being mere ciphers in travelogues or tales of people’s listing exploits. You must read it yourself to find out about the unusual title. You should read it anyway. Let me finish this unashamed total recommendation by quoting Jameson on a familiar bird to most of us: ‘A soaring buzzard often has an entourage of irate crows, flailing in its wake. This serves mainly to emphasise how expert a flier a buzzard is, how much more refined its lines, how dignified its progress. Cool. Chilled out. Effortless. Serene. A ballet within a brawl, protected from the blows of its assailants by some invisible field created by total balance and mastery of the air.’ Anthropomorphic perhaps, but what a wonderful way to write about a bird! -- Mike Everett * British Birds * I am pretty well immune to claims of poetic and inspiring prose as I all too often find, instead, prosaic and mundane writing or journalism collected and boiled in the pot. Poetry is often hidden in a style that sets out merely to record such as in Gilbert White, and inspiration more often found in the simplest poetry written not for style but from a hand moved by nature in a land of lost content. However, as I am still reading ‘Shrewdunnit’ you may suppose the claim not to be totally unjustified. I am just emerged from proof-reading a 650 page tome and, believe me, there is nothing more boring than reading for the umpteenth time something you wrote yourself! So reading the opening pieces in Mr Jameson’s book were an unexpected pleasure. It is journalism, but from an essayist, full of fact but expressed with an underlying passion or simple love of the beauty of the countryside and a deep desire to see it return to what it was and could be. Here you find history and country lore, gardening advice and literary allusion with plenty of incidental birdsong. By which I mean that an essay about hedge planting is told in such a way that you can almost hear the Nightingales at the end of the lane or the Blackbird singing from the stump of a newly hewn leylandii. This is a book I shall look forward to dipping into often. -- The Fatbirder * Fatbirder website * Shrewdunnit is done in an old form, one currently neglected, perhaps as old- fashioned, in the US, and still done very well in England-- a year's observations, mostly of one place (although he is a thoroughly modern naturalist and also goes abroad); a phenology, a record, a series of sketches light and serious. Such a book stands or falls by two things: how well the writer knows his chosen place, and how well he writes, how originally he he can see. Conor succeeds on both counts. -- Stephen Bodio * Querencia (blog) * "It's a great read, and it's hard to get through it without at least once promising yourself to live a little bit more deliberately, and attentively. Truly inspirational."  -- Matt Merritt * Birdwatching Magazine * "blends environmental knowledge with gentle humour.... while these diary pieces are packed with information, their pace is leisured and their tone deceptively simple... There is a quirkiness to his wildlife passions. This warm-hearted book also displays a gift for fine writing... underscores why his RSPB column is so popular." -- Mark Cocker * Countryfile, June 2014 *