Tom Fort

Amphibidextrous

Cold Blood: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians

By

Chatto & Windus 290pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

There was a time when boys had hobbies. They collected stamps, pinned dead butterflies to strips of balsa wood, stole eggs from birds’ nests, painted model aircraft and toy soldiers, and spotted trains. The point about hobbies – whether indoor or outdoor – was that they had to be slightly obsessive. To have a hobby was to belong to a club of other obsessives, with rules and rituals and due process.

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