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Wild About Britain

A lifetime of award-winning nature writing

by Brian Jackman 

£9.99 £8.99

Wild About Britain – Holiday reads, travel and nature writing by award-winning journalist Brian Jackman. From Cornwall to Shetland, East Anglia to the Welsh Marches, an ‘extended love letter to the British Countryside’. Covering wildlife, wild places, fishing, sailing and how history has shaped the landscape. Foreword by Simon Barnes.

314 in stock

Paperback
ISBN: 9781784770679

Published:  28th Sep 2017
Size:  130 X 198 mm
Edition:  1
Number of pages:  224

About this book

A new collection of award-winning journalist and author Brian Jackman’s nature and travel writings from the past 40 years. This is a nationwide celebration of Britain’s unspoiled coast and countryside, concentrating in particular on Britain’s wildlife and the wild places in which its most spectacular species are found, but also touching on fishing, sailing and the way Britain’s history has shaped the landscape. ‘Wild about Britain is not a guidebook’ says Brian Jackman. ‘It’s an extended love letter to the British countryside; a personal view covering more than four decades of travels in the wilder parts of Britain.’
Complementing Brian Jackman’s writing are a small number of illustrations from Jonathan Truss, one of the UK’s leading wildlife artists who has twice won the Frozen Planet category of the BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year competition.
What makes the British countryside so special is its chameleon quality – the way its character changes with every few miles. Sometimes it can change dramatically; elsewhere the landscape undergoes more subtle shifts; but every region has its own distinctive qualities and is possessed of its own special magic. Brian Jackman writes eloquently and evocatively, conjuring up the sights and sounds of everything from barnacle geese on the salt marsh of an Islay loch to star gazing on Exmoor, of a seascape of headlands, cliffs and wave-smashed rocks at Lands End, of eagles on the Ardnamurchan peninsula and the autumn rut in the New Forest. Ancient oaks, red kites, huge mirror carp, the oldest path in Britain and Border reivers are all included.
As a pioneer of eco-tourism, Brian Jackman has been writing on these subjects for 40 years, first as a travel writer for The Sunday Times and currently for The Daily Telegraph. Although more widely known for his knowledge of African wildlife and safaris – he is the author of The Marsh Lions and Savannah Diaries – it is his love of the British countryside that has brought him most of his awards. From Cornwall to Hermaness and from East Anglia to the Welsh Marches, Wild About Britain showcases Jackman’s writing at its best.
Winner of the British Guild of Travel Writers Best Narrative Travel Book 2018.

About the Author

From Cornwall to Hermaness and from East Anglia to the Welsh Marches, Wild About Britain showcases Jackman’s writing at its best, exploring the countryside whose sights and sounds have shaped his life since childhood.
Brian Jackman is an award-winning journalist and author with a passion for travel and wildlife. For more than four decades he has covered the world, first for The Sunday Times and now for The Daily Telegraph, pioneering the concept of eco-tourism. Although most widely known as Britain’s foremost writer on African safaris, he has retained his love of our own wildlife and landscapes.

Reviews

Picked by Stephen Moss for The Guardian’s best nature books of 2017 list.

” Wild About Britain by veteran travel writer Brian Jackman (Bradt) will come as a pleasant surprise to those who know the author only for his matchless prose on African wildlife.” Stephen Moss

“Brian Jackman’s descriptions of landscape and atmosphere transport you into marvellous places.” BBC Wildlife Magazine

Additional Information

Table of Contents

Contents
Foreword by Simon Barnes
Introduction: A Passion for Nature

HOME GROUND
My Dorset
A Carp Called Harry
Pebbles as Big as Skulls
The Farm that Time Forgot
Waiting for a Bite
The Leys of the Land
Staying Ahead of the Pack
A Forest Fit for Merlin

SOUTH
Looking for Laurie under a Cotswold Sky
In Search of King Alfred
Between the Woods and the Water
Mayfly
The Secret Life of the Fox

WEST AND WALES
Tarka Territory
Sand as Soft as Talc
Where the Land Runs Out
A Passion for Peregrines
Stargazing in Stag Country
The Exe Factor
Lost in Scrumpy Land
Red Kite Country
The Island of the Tides
Slow Train to Yesterday
Lullaby in Roseland
Lord of the Flies
Dartmoor’s Dark Age Undercroft
Cul-de-Sac Country
All I Ask Is a Tall Ship

EAST
The Old Man of Brundon
Arthur Ransome’s Secret Tideways
Holding Back the Deluge
Life in the Eye of a Lazy Wind
A Winter’s Tale
An Owl for Autumn

NORTH
Land of the Steel Bonnets
Dales in Crisis
When the River Rises
Singing in the Rain

SCOTLAND
Islands of the Simmer Dim
Highland Summer
Rum’s the Word
Dodging the Bonxies
Wings Over Scotland
Where Eagles Fly
Stormy Seas and Safe Havens
Hefted to the Hills
Listening for the Hounds of Heaven

Acknowledgements