‘The Swimmer is a wonderful, original achievement; teeming with stories, glittering with images, and experimental in form and tone’ Robert Macfarlane

Roger Deakin, author of the immortal Waterlog, was a man of many parts: maverick ad-man, cider-maker, teacher, environmentalist, music promoter and filmmaker. But, above all, he was the restorer of ancient Walnut Tree Farm in Suffolk, the heartland where he wrote about all natural life – with rare attention, intimacy, precision and poetry.

Roger Deakin was unique, and so too is this joyful work of creative biography, told primarily in the words of the subject himself, with support from a chorus of friends, family, colleagues and lovers. Delving deep into Deakin’s library of words, Patrick Barkham draws from notebooks, diaries, letters and recordings to conjure his voice back to glorious life in these pages.

‘A rich, strange and compelling work of creative memoir that beautifully honours and elevates the life and work of its subject’ Alex Preston, Observer

Roger Deakin, author of the immortal Waterlog and Wildwood, was a man of unusually many parts. A born writer who nonetheless took decades to write his first book, Roger was also variously – and sometimes simultaneously – maverick ad-man, seller of stripped pine furniture on the Portobello Road, cider-maker, teacher, environmentalist, music promoter, and filmmaker. But above all he was the restorer of ancient Walnut Tree Farm in Suffolk, the heartland which he shared with a host of visitors, both animal and human, and wrote about – as he wrote about all natural life – with rare attention, intimacy, precision and poetry.

Roger Deakin was unique, and so too is this joyful work of creative biography, told primarily in the words of the subject himself, with support from a chorus of friends, family, colleagues, lovers and neighbours.

Delving deep into Roger Deakin’s library of words, Patrick Barkham draws from notebooks, diaries, letters, recordings, published work and early drafts, to conjure his voice back to glorious life in these pages. To read this book is to listen in to a dream conversation between a writer and those who knew him intimately.

The collected writings from one of the nation’s most celebrated nature writers.

‘Barkham is an outstanding author.’
CHRIS PACKHAM

‘Wonder-filled . . . A treat. Patrick knows how to tell a good story, and that combination of kindness, wonder and good fortune that seems to be present in his own life shines through.’
CAUGHT BY THE RIVER

What is happening to nature?
What are we as a species doing about it?
What have we learned?

Wild Green Wonders paints a portrait of contemporary wildlife, bearing witness to the many changes imposed upon the planet and the challenges lying ahead for the future of nature.

From peregrine falcons nesting by the Thames to a conversation with Sir David Attenborough; from protests against the HS2 railway to an encounter with Britain’s last lion tamer, this collection – drawn from twenty years’ worth of Patrick Barkham’s writing for the Guardian – forms a joyful, fascinating and enlightening chronicle of one of the nation’s most celebrated nature writers.

‘Outstanding nature journalism.’ HORATIO CLARE
‘A heralded nature writer.’ THE TIMES
‘A lovely, fluid writer.’ DAILY MAIL

The collected writings from one of the nation’s most celebrated nature writers.

‘Barkham is an outstanding author.’
CHRIS PACKHAM

‘Wonder-filled . . . A treat. Patrick knows how to tell a good story, and that combination of kindness, wonder and good fortune that seems to be present in his own life shines through.’
CAUGHT BY THE RIVER

What is happening to nature?
What are we as a species doing about it?
What have we learned?

Wild Green Wonders paints a portrait of contemporary wildlife, bearing witness to the many changes imposed upon the planet and the challenges lying ahead for the future of nature.

From peregrine falcons nesting by the Thames to a conversation with Sir David Attenborough; from protests against the HS2 railway to an encounter with Britain’s last lion tamer, this collection – drawn from twenty years’ worth of Patrick Barkham’s writing for the Guardian – forms a joyful, fascinating and enlightening chronicle of one of the nation’s most celebrated nature writers.

‘Outstanding nature journalism.’ HORATIO CLARE
‘A heralded nature writer.’ THE TIMES
‘A lovely, fluid writer.’ DAILY MAIL

The landscapes of Britain and Ireland, together with the creatures and plants that inhabit them, have penetrated deep in our collective imagination. From Gilbert White and Dorothy Wordsworth to Laurie Lee and Nan Shepherd, literature inspired by the natural world has become an integral part of our shared identity, and shaped our relationship with the islands we call home.

In The Wild Isles, Patrick Barkham has gathered together a wide array of the very best of British and Irish nature writing, characterized by an arresting diversity of moods and voices. His choices are arranged under themes that range from birds, woods and coastlines to childhood, the seasons and urban nature, and juxtapose extracts from much-loved classics with passages by contemporary writers such as Robert Macfarlane, James Rebanks and Helen Macdonald. Here the reader will find joyful celebrations of landscape and the wildlife it nurtures, probing explorations of the environmental problems facing us today, as well as the fresh and vital perspectives of writers from underrepresented backgrounds. ‘If British and Irish nature writing is to grow and endure,’ writes Barkham in his introduction, ‘it must be diverse, complex, multi-faceted and dynamic, and relevant to everyone who lives on this land.’

Encompassing the bleak heights of the Cairngorms, the ancient woodlands of Essex, the storm-lashed islands of Ireland’s west coast and the lush fields of Devon, The Wild Isles highlights nature’s capacity to terrify and to delight, to soothe and to heal, to surprise, inspire and bring wonder.