Book description
The Collins Nature Library is a new series of classic British nature
writing - reissues of long-lost seminal works. The titles have been
chosen by one of Britain's best known and highly-acclaimed nature
writers, Robert Macfarlane, who has also written new introductions that
put these classics into a modern context.
Adventures Among Birds is almost a manifesto for the life of birds.
Hudson's experience of different forms of birdlife is prodigious, and he
weaves a thousand small anecdotes together into a rallying call against
indifference to the beauty of birds.
From childhood memories of his first caged bird and his growing passion
for them, slowly growing throughout his adolescence in Argentina, to the
beauty of the diversity of birdlife in England, Hudson's delight at this
particular aspect of nature is palpable.
It is in his protests against the hunting of birds for sport that his
love for birds is most clearly shown. Their behaviour towards one
another convinces Hudson of their friendship, and his powers of
observation paint a picture of interaction and emotion between birds
that is almost human.
Adventures Among Birds is a collection of detailed little pictures of
the feathered world and why it matters. Told with an unrelenting passion
for its subject, Hudson's book is sure to draw you in with its countless
beautiful descriptions in miniature. '… [A] passionate self-portrait
of Hudson the bird lover and throughout this tome he makes a good
companion to go birding with. There are many tales of wonderment as he
watches and is captivated by birds, but it is his desire to protect
birds that makes me realise that many of the issues that concern me
today have been prevalent for a long time.' Ceri Levy, Caught by the
River William Henry Hudson was born in Argentina, the son of settlers
of US origin. He spent his early days studying the local flora and fauna
before settling in England in 1874. He produced a series of
ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888-1899) and
British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the
English countryside, including Hampshire Day (1903), Afoot in England
(1909) and A Shepherd's Life (1910), which helped foster the
back-to-nature movement of the 1920s and 1930s. He was a founding member
of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Robert Macfarlane won the Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset
Maugham Award, and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for
his first book, Mountains of the Mind (2003). His second, The Wild
Places (2007), was similarly celebrated, winning three prizes and being
shortlisted for six more. Both books were adapted for television by the
BBC. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
