A YEAR WITH GILBERT WHITE

Uglow makes us feel the life beyond the facts GUARDIAN Few can match Uglow s skill at conjuring up a scene or illuminating a character SUNDAY TIMES Uglow s style is supremely elegant and often amusingly bathetic her research exhaustive but lightly worn FINANCIAL TIMES In 1781 Gilbert White was a country curate living in the Hampshire village he had known all his life Fascinated by the fauna flora and people around him he kept journals for many years and at that time was halfway to completing his path breaking The Natural History of Selborne No one had written like this before with such close observation humour and sympathy his spellbinding book has remained in print ever since treasured by generations of readers Jenny Uglow illuminates this quirky warm hearted man the father of ecology by following a single year in his Naturalist s Journal As his diary jumps from topic to topic she accompanies Gilbert from frost to summer drought from the migration of birds to the sex lives of snails and the coming of harvest Fresh alive and original and packed with rich colour illustrations A Year with Gilbert White invites us to see the natural world anew with astonishment and wonder