Horizon paperback is out, I'm planning on buying it later. Totally agree Lopez is superior to MacFarlane but no doubt RF is the UK main popular exponent as far as nature writing is concerned and I was just trying to locate Lopez within that genre for people. I also really like his stuff although he does make it easy to take the piss out of him sometimes.
Quote from: Johnny Brown on April 26, 2020, 06:33:27 pmGiven that most of the genre seems to consist of London based writer moves to the country and discovers nature, Person with actual outdoor experience moves to London could potentially be a hot new take!Having moved from the Midlands to London for work (and now out of London again) my greatest nature hits from the capital were/are:The number of herons and wildfowl in Regent's ParkSeeing bitterns at the wetland centre which was only a tube and a bus awayThe flocks of parakeets in Ealing and Hampstead HeathGrey wagtails around the water feature in our local park in EalingThe variety of wildfowl I could see on my commute by walking along the canal round little venice in winter including pochard and red-crested pochardThe number of red kites you see over the M40 when driving out of London/back
Given that most of the genre seems to consist of London based writer moves to the country and discovers nature, Person with actual outdoor experience moves to London could potentially be a hot new take!
A pretty good synopsis of a book about a time long,long ago. Or so it seems...The author certainly doesn't like Geoff Weigand much, that's for damn sure....
One Day as a Tiger, John Porter. The story of mountaineer Alex MacIntyre, who died in 1982 aged 28, hit by a stone on the south face of Annapurna. He certainly crammed a lot into those few years of life, not just hard routes in the Alps and Himalayas but also designing gear, shaping the BMC and forging links with Polish climbers. Porter was one of his climbing partners and this book is as much about the milieu of 70s and 80s British Alpinism as it is MacIntrye himself. It's all reasonably rock and roll as you'd expect, with some truly hair raising moments: a gem deal gone wrong in Afghanistan is one of the more frightening tales in the book. He captures how wild the Himalaya must have been in those days. Porter plays it totally straight until the final few days of the Annapurna trip, when the paranormal and premonitions of fate loom large. MacIntyre is being pulled into a vortex he cannot escape from, it seems, or is this just Porter's hindsight speaking? Either way, I'm glad he waited 30 years to write the book as it gives it a heft of maturity and insight that most mountaineering books lack. Definitely one of the best of the genre.
On the Iain (M) Banks front, I didn't get on with the sci-fi on a previous attempt (Consider Phlebas),
Quote from: Stabbsy on August 06, 2020, 02:56:10 pmOn the Iain (M) Banks front, I didn't get on with the sci-fi on a previous attempt (Consider Phlebas),IMO Consider Phlebas is one of the weaker Culture books, if you are going to have another go at any point I’d recommend Player of Games, Use of Weapons or Surface Detail.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin