jazzyinthewild's Reviews (146)

A handbook to trespassing, this book brings attention to how limited our access to nature is in the UK , whilst exploring the important benefits of the right to roam and how it improves not only our mental & physical health but also the health of our wildlife & vital ecosystems. 

‘92% of English land is out of bounds to the public. Of this, only 6% is built on. 56% is given to agricultural production, livestock and growing crops. 97% of rivers are out of bounds to the public’. 

Nick Hayes has created the definitive guide to trespassing. I don’t think I’ve read another book as jam-packed with so much useful information and knowledge, and such beautiful illustrations! 

Hayes provides seemingly endless resources, guiding the reader on how to trespass safely and respectfully - and what to do in sticky situations with landowners - with links to organisations, charities, campaigns and websites to join & support.

I was very impressed with how many alternative forms of action were included for those who wouldn't be comfortable with trespassing or those who simply don’t have the time to spare. 

I found it incredibly interesting learning about the history of landownership in the UK and how it has changed over the years. I dream of the time where we can live off the land freely and respectfully and wander off the paths, wherever our feet take us.

A lovely addition to the book was the contribution of numerous guest writers, from authors to activists, farmers to artists - including people from marginalised groups. Each of them sharing stories and experiences in nature & reiterating the importance of equal access to natural spaces.

I loved this book a lot more than I expected to. I learnt so much and the information was presented in a way that wasn’t at all guilt-inducing, not even a hint of ‘why aren’t you doing this yet?!’. Every single sentence felt relevant & interesting, which I think is quite rare for non-fiction books - to be without unnecessary waffle & tangents.

This is the perfect book for any nature lover or anyone who wishes they could stray off the footpath, hop over the gate and explore the lands where ‘no trespassing is allowed’.

I’ve never really been one for poetry, nor have I ever really given it a proper chance. Probably because of the amount of ‘war and conflict’ poems I had to study & memorise for my English GCSE exam. 

I was a bit sceptical to reach for The Heeding at first, but I’m so glad I did. I was pleasantly surprised by this book and it completely hooked me from the first page.

Rob Cowen has created a wonderful anthology of poems which I think anyone will love - even if you think you’re not into poetry like me. A perfect blend of nature, family and community in the challenging times of the pandemic.

I finished it in one sitting, I couldn’t get enough. I found myself reading them aloud, whispering them to myself, and I know that I will return to the beautiful pages of this book time and time again. 

So much has happened over these past 2 years, and I doubt I’m alone in that I haven’t really given myself the chance to sit and think about how much we’ve all been through. I think that we are always ‘encouraged’ to move on and forget about things quicker than we can recover and reflect on them - and I feel like now c*vid has become one of those things. 

The Heeding gave me that time to sit and reflect and actually think about how it affected me, and for that I am extremely grateful. In the introduction Cowen mentions that Nick Hayes, who beautifully illustrated the book, said that when reading the poems it felt like ‘healing in the heeding’ and that is the exact feeling I felt.

I didn’t know I needed to read this book, but it put me through every emotion and has touched my heart in ways no other book has done before. It’s now one of those books that give me a warm, fuzzy feeling when I look at it.

I had so many favourites, I even committed the unforgivable crime of dogearing my favourite pages - I understand if you unfollow me after reading this lol. My favourites included: Noises Off, This Is How A Spider Is Seen, Lost, The Pact, Starling, Last Breaths, Moor, Matter, This Allotment, Viking Gold & Wolf. 

I've found so many forever favourites this year already, and my luck didn’t run out when I recently read Michael Christie’s ‘Greenwood’.

Spanning over 120 years the book is structured like the concentric growth rings of a tree and focuses on 5 of the most pivotal rings in Greenwood history - giving the term ‘family tree’ a whole new definition.

The Greenwood family, as their surname suggests, are all in some way or another connected to trees - whether that be through logging, carpentry, dendrology, tourism or activism.

We flick from 2038 where ‘The Great Withering’ - the wave of fungal blights and insect infestations caused by climate change - has wiped out almost all of the world's forests and people around the globe are dying from a new cough-inducing strain of tuberculosis caused by the increase of dust storms, all the way back to 1908 where the logging industry was just beginning to find its feet.

Trees became a luxury, only affordable for the richest members of society, with Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral open for pilgrims, celebrities & billionaires to spend some valuable time with one of the last remaining forests in the world - although most of them just want to take a selfie in the trees to post to their socials..

Christie’s writing completely blew my mind. The story is structured in such a unique & apt way, and the details are absolutely insane! It was so easy to become invested in each and every character, learning so much about each of their lives with SO MUCH DETAIL. I adored every character.

This is what I would class as a climate fiction book, but the story comes incredibly close to our reality right now (as do most in this genre). Of course many of us have been aware of the detrimental effects of climate change across the globe for a while now, and with temperatures reaching 40C for the first time in the UK this week, it is becoming harder and harder for people to deny & ignore. 

This is definitely one for fans of The Overstory. I also kept thinking of Once Upon A River whilst reading this, finding familiarities in how incredible the storytelling is.

This multigenerational, pageturner of a climate fiction book is a must-read and has definitely made it into my top 5 reads so far this year, and claimed a spot on my forever shelf.

 Catherine Munro, studying the concept of domestication for her Phd, moves to the Shetland Islands to research the connections between Shetland crofters & their ponies and sheep.

She discovers the unique relationships the islanders have with the animals & the importance of allowing them to grow into hardy, independent individuals, whilst still maintaining healthy bonds and respect for both animal and human. 

At first moving from bustling city life, where everyone keeps to themselves, to the community-focused Whalsay, (just off mainland Shetland) where every door is left unlocked for unannounced guests to visit at any time of day & the only way on or off the island is a questionably small car ferry, Munro starts her island journey feeling like she doesn't belong.

Whilst carrying out her research, connecting with neighbours, crofters & pony breeders and getting used to island life, she finds herself unwinding from the stress of chasing jobs and the trauma of a personal loss and begins to find peace in walking the island, reconnecting to the natural world and ultimately healing in nature - with the wind & waves as her medicine. 

Learning to notice, to look up and see interactions between pairs of seabirds or a herd of sheep welcoming a newcomer, Munro learns the ability to read the nature and landscape around her -  knowing the time of day by which birds are calling, knowing when a storm is due by where the ponies & sheep decide to take shelter, knowing where the biggest swarms of fish are by where the birds are circling the water. 

This was a beautiful book, a love letter to Shetland and all the animals and people that live there. The Shetland Islands have now been added to my life list of places to visit.

After discovering the mycorrhizal networks that lie beneath our feet, connecting the trees to one another through their root systems, Simard dedicates her life to understanding these connections & what it means for the future of our forests. 

She discovers that through this fungal network (‘wood wide web’) trees share water, nitrogen and carbon with each other. The ‘Mother Trees’ being the oldest and largest in the forest, can tell which seedlings are their own kin and nurture them throughout their life, providing them with food and water - exactly like us humans.

‘These old trees are mothering their children’

‘The Mother Trees’

Throughout the book she recounts her field experiments and her findings, explaining everything really thoroughly and in a way that is so easy to follow.

Along the way she battles logging policies, like the ‘free to grow’ method, proving them ineffective & unnecessarily damaging to the ecosystem. She shares the sexism she was faced with, being a woman in a male dominated sector trying to tell the men they were doing it wrong, and how most of the men were incapable of listening to her despite her solid research.

Simard also shared her struggles of being a mother, going through divorce & fighting off cancer whilst dedicating her life to her research, always longing to be amongst her trees. She finds herself learning important lessons from the Mothers, guiding her to better connect with family, deal with her illness & pass on her wisdom to her two daughters. 

‘When Mother Trees die, they pass their wisdom to their kin, generation after generation, sharing the knowledge of what helps and what harms, who is friend or foe, and how to adapt and survive in an ever-changing landscape. It’s what all parents do.’

Simard’s work has completely changed the world’s view on trees & forests. Her research has and will continue to allow us to take a deep dive under the humus, through the soil and down into the fungi coated roots of our Mothers to learn from them & for them. 

Finding The Mother Tree is such a beautiful book. I would say it’s a cross between a nature memoir, a scientific journal & a love letter to the trees - similar to Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

The whole feeling of the book transported me into the depths of a Douglas Fir forest sitting around a campfire on mossy rocks (keeping an eye out for bears), with Simard chatting me through her life working in the trees adding in little snippets of her family life & heritage. 

This book has changed the way I view trees, and I will never be able to walk through a forest the same way again. I recommend this to everybody, nature lover or not.

Ornithologist and cancer survivor Joanna Teale spends the summer in rural Illinois, renting out a cabin in the woods, to study nesting success of the local Indigo Buntings (which are real & beautiful - look them up!) 

One evening after work, Jo returns home to a lone girl, called Ursa, on her doorstep claiming to be from another planet sent to Earth to witness 5 miracles before she can return home. Jo & her neighbour Gabe spend the summer trying to figure out how to help this mysterious child.

This book wasn’t anything like I expected it to be, but I was pleasantly surprised by the story and I didn’t want to stop reading! It’s very fast paced, with a lot going on pretty much the whole way through the book, and almost all of the characters were loveable and relatable.

Jo was my favourite character. Her ornithology work is perfectly intertwined with the story - I loved all of the details of her nest sites and surveys.

This was such a heartwarming read, filled with love, family and compassion, whilst also satisfying my thirst for nature/environmental fiction.

For fans of: Once Upon A River, Sharks In The Time Of Saviours, Where The Crawdads Sing.

There are quite a lot of heavy topics, so I would recommend checking the content warnings before reading.

After discovering she’d been cropped out of a group photo of climate activists, in which she was the only person of colour, Vanessa Nakate shares the story of her journey into activism.

Combating society's expectations of how Ugandan women should behave, whilst being careful to confine with strict protesting laws, Nakate takes the plunge into activism raising awareness of the climate emergency & most importantly starting the conversation of climate justice and action in her home country of Uganda.

Throughout the book, Nakate highlights some of the devastating impacts the climate crisis is already having on Uganda, and the rest of the Global South, including droughts, floods & heat waves - all of which have detrimental effects on crop growth, meaning people are left with little or no source of food or income. This also leads to girls being forced out of school and becoming victims of child marriage, to provide their families with money to buy food.

‘A Bigger Picture’ is vital reading. A great resource to educate ourselves on the effects of the climate crisis in Uganda & Africa as a continent, and also how it effects people of colour & marginalised communities - which we rarely get made aware of by the media who focus predominantly on the Global North. In the final chapter, Nakate provides ‘10 ways to stand up for what is right and just’, alongside lists of activists & organisations to follow and support, hashtags to use, and even lists suggestions of slogans to use on placards when protesting.

No matter how tuned in you are with the climate crisis, I think everyone can learn something from reading Vanessa’s inspiring & urgent message.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

If you are looking for a new reason to get yourself out in nature, or a way to deepen your connection to our planet - this beautiful little book is absolutely essential reading. It will leave you looking for every little tuft of moss tucked away in the cracks of pavements & brushing your fingertips over every moss carpet you come across in the forest.

Kimmerer’s words just ooze utter passion & love, the whole book felt like a beautiful love letter to moss - a thankyou for paving the way for life as we know it. I loved how short and snappy the chapters were, yet still completely jam-packed with so much wisdom & knowledge.

I feel like this is the perfect companion for someone wanting to begin their journey into rewilding themselves, and also acts as a reminder of how disconnected we have become from our origins.

I went through nearly every emotion whilst reading this book and the lessons I learned throughout will stay with me for the rest of my life. Robin Wall Kimmerer is now one of those people I will look up to forever and I know I will pass on her knowledge & words to anyone who’ll listen.