23 Spellbinding Ways to Make Nature More Visible

We're not just losing the wild world. We're forgetting it. We're no longer noticing it. We've lost the habit of looking and seeing and listening and hearing.

But we can make hidden things visible, and this book features 23 spellbinding ways to bring the magic of nature much closer to home.

Mammals you never knew existed will enter your world. Birds hidden in treetops will shed their cloak of anonymity. With a single movement of your hand you can make reptiles appear before you. Butterflies you never saw before will bring joy to every sunny day. Creatures of the darkness will enter your consciousness. And as you take on new techniques and a little new equipment, you will discover new creatures and, with them, new areas of yourself that had gone dormant. Once put to use, they wake up and start working again. You become wilder in your mind and in your heart. Once you know the tricks, the wild world begins to appear before you.

For anyone who wants to get closer to the nature all around them and bring it back into focus, this is the perfect read.

Author : Simon Barnes

Edition : Simon and Schuster, Hardback / Paperback, 208 pages

ISBN : 9781471175404 / 9781471175428

Published : 1st November 2018 / 1st June 2020

Weight: 331g / 191g
Dimensions: 135 x 216 x 19mm / 130 x 198 x 15 mm

Longlisted for The BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2016

Charles Foster wanted to know what it was like to be a beast: a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, a swift. What it was really like. And through knowing what it was like he wanted to get down and grapple with the beast in us all. So he tried it out; he lived life as a badger for six weeks, sleeping in a dirt hole and eating earthworms, he came face to face with shrimps as he lived like an otter and he spent hours curled up in a back garden in East London and rooting in bins like an urban fox. A passionate naturalist, Foster realises that every creature creates a different world in its brain and lives in that world. As humans, we share sensory outputs, lights, smells and sound, but trying to explore what it is actually like to live in another of these worlds, belonging to another species, is a fascinating and unique neuro-scientific challenge. For Foster it is also a literary challenge. Looking at what science can tell us about what happens in a fox's or badger's brain when it picks up a scent, he then uses this to imagine their world for us, to write it through their eyes or rather through the eyes of Charles the beast. An intimate look at the life of animals, neuroscience, psychology, nature writing, memoir and more, it is a journey of extraordinary thrills and surprises, containing wonderful moments of humour and joy, but also providing important lessons for all of us who share life on this precious planet.

Author : Charles Foster

Edition : Profile Books, Paperback, 256 pages

ISBN : 9781781255353

“Ever dreamed of being an otter? That utter underwater thunderbolter, that shimmering twister.”

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards 30 from 30 Award 2020

Winner of the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year 2018

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2017

Shortlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2018

Shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2019

The Lost Words is a very special illustrated collection of spell-poems to re-wild the language of children. All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world - Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children's minds.

Why Novel North recommends

'Meandering through the pages of this big book brings enormous joy. The illustrations are spellbinding and the words magical. A wonderful book for adults and children.’

Author : Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris

Edition : Hamish Hamilton imprint of Penguin Books, Hardback, 128 pages

ISBN : 9780241253588

Published : 5th July 2017

Weight: 1469g
Dimensions: 377 x 278 x 16mm

Combining scientific discovery and a deep love of trees and woodland, The Hidden Life of Trees will change your impression of a walk in the wood for years to come in the best possible way.

Author : Peter Wohlleben

Edition : Paperback, 288 pages

ISBN : 9780008218430