Diana Athill
All Things Bright & Beautiful
Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet
By Mark Cocker
Jonathan Cape 238pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
The naturalist Mark Cocker lives in a Norfolk village called Claxton, where most of what he chronicles in this book took place. I spent my first twenty-five years in a nearby village, and loved my place as intensely as he loves his. What’s more, I believed that I knew it intimately. I am now ashamed of myself. The ‘Claxton Parish Species List’ appended to Cocker’s text explains why. It runs to 1,108 items. This awe-inspiring list is presented under a number of headings: Fungi, Vascular Plants, Bryophytes, Lichens, Flatworms, Slugs and Snails, Millipedes, Spiders and Relatives, Dragonflies, Bugs and Relatives, Butterflies and Moths, Birds, Mammals, and so on. Never again will I claim to know a place ‘intimately’.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'There is a chilling moment as he describes a gun hovering over him as its holder tries to make up his mind as to whether Lançon is dead or alive.'
Andrew Hussey reviews Philippe Lançon's extraordinary first-hand account of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
http://ow.ly/3M8E50xqqrE
Tales from the New Bedlam: my piece on Tim Etchells' ENDLAND in the current Literary Review https://literaryreview.co.uk/tales-from-the-new-bedlam via @Lit_Review There's a paywall but the first bit's free . . .
Here's my Christmas children's book round up for @Lit_Review featuring @TheSallyGardner @FrancesHardinge @hilary_mckay @FisherAuthor Alison Moore @chrisriddell50 Ben Manley @emmachichesterc https://literaryreview.co.uk/shipwrecks-spectres