Changes

{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1839948493|title=A World of Dogs|author=Helen MacdonaldCarlie Sorosiak and Luisa Uribe|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I'm a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't trust and I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the same about human beings. So, any book about dogs, I'm going to sit down and devour. Then I'm going to go back and read it properly. And so it was with ''A World of Dogs'', with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since then.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lev Parikian |title=H is Light Rains Sometimes Fall |rating=4.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary= If you’re a writer yourself, or an aspiring writer, or someone who pretends to write, then you know that there are unnumbered types of books. Some you read for Hawkfun, some for distraction, some for vicarious emotion, some to learn from in a random way, some for focussed research, and some because they are, broadly speaking, the kind of thing you think you might like to write. Or, indeed, are actually trying to write.|isbn=1783966386}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde

|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=When I saw Helen Macdonald speak at It had been on the cards for a nature conferencewhile but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, she recounted particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a conversation with world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a Samuel Johnson Prize judgepandemic. S/he Wilde had remarked that Macdonald's a few advantages: the area around her was three books in one: a memoir known habitat with a variety of grief after terrains. She had electricity which allowed her father's unexpected deathto run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a biography of T. H. White, car - and an account of falconry experiments with Mabel the goshawkfuel. Macdonald quipped that the description made her book sound like washing powder Most importantly, but itshe had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live''s accurate nonetheless, and explains why the book won the Samuel Johnson Prize (the first memoir wild just to do so) and is shortlisted for the Costa Biography awardlive off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097008</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Noah Strycker0711266204|title=The Magic and Mystery Secret Life of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)

|summary=Sometimes I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it is easy seems to overlook the wonder all around usbe appropriate. For example, that scruffy looking starling sitting on your garden fence may look unassuming Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and commonplace, Small'' but type ''murmurationNever Work With Animals'' into is definitely not the search bar on Youtube and prepare to be mesmerised as companion volume you've been looking for. As a huge flock of TV show the birds perform a gracefully hypnotic aerial ballet which has an almost alien quality. If we take time to stop and look at our feathered friends, we will see that they are anything but ordinary. The bird world is full of unsolved mysteries author would argue that humans are only now beginning to unravel: How do pigeons navigate? How do vultures find food? What are penguins afraid of? How do nutcrackers find their hidden food caches? ''The Magic and Mystery of BirdsAll Creatures'' searches lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for the answers younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to these questionsinform and provoke thought, as well as many moreparticularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, opening our eyes to the hidden world of birdsalthough there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0285642790</amazonuk>

I was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786495902|title=The Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind|author=Steve BackshallIsabel Hardman|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=Isabel Hardman suffered a trauma which she chooses not to share. She says that a friend who does know, burst into tears and health-care professionals' jaws have sagged in disbelief. Hardman dealt with this at the time by 'keeping going': the next day she went to work to cover the budget, next there was the EU referendum, the political party leadership contests and then it was party conference season. One night she had to be sedated and returned home to begin long-term sick leave. That was what brought me to this book: 2020 was the year when the bins went out more often than I did.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1782407480|title=Deadly Pole to Pole DiariesBird Love: The Family Life of Birds|author=Wenfei Tong and Mike Webster

|genre=Children's Non-FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Dear Diary, today I really woke up was a little perturbed when I looked at the blurb for ''Bird Love'' on a couple of on -line booksellers: ''exploring the wrong side sex life of the bedbirds'' it said. For most people that means waking up in a grumpy moodI very nearly passed over the book, but for me it literally means a closer examination suggested that the book is about the wrong side ''family life'' of the bedbirds, which is rather different. I stepped straight into a pool full If the book was confined to the sex life of viscous fish and then I climbed outbirds, only you would be missing an opportunity to understand how birds live day-to be chased by a bear-day, bring up their families and cope in the wild. I am either eating too much cheese before I go to bed or partaking on Not only that, you have missed the treat of so many beautiful illustrations about a magnificent journey wide variety of birds which run through this book from Pole the first page to Pole visiting dangerous animals on the waylast.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1846045576|title=Walks In The Wild|author=Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1444013769</amazonuk>''An instruction manual for the forest'' is how Wohlleben's publisher described the idea for this book, and that's basically what it is – although right at the end the author says that it is not intended to be a reference book, but an appetiser.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Buckingham_Dawn|title=The Snow Leopard (Mini Edition)Little Book of the Dawn Chorus|author=Jackie MorrisCaz Buckingham and Andrea Pinnington|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=You probably havenWhat a treat! I really did mean to just 't heard 'glance'' at ''The Little Book of Mergichans – although if you pronounce it correctly in your head, in connection with spirits and magic, you will work out what they are. One of them is the totem, if you like, Dawn Chorus'' but the pull of a hidden Himalayan valley, and she is in the form sounds of a snow leopard, dozen different birds singing existence as she sees fit their hearts out was far too much to resist on a cold and protecting rather wet February morning. I spent an indulgent hour or so reading all about the Shangri-La type locationbirds and listening to their song. But she cannot protect Then - just because I could - I went back and did it from all-comers, least of all when she's trying to sing to find a successoragain and it was just as good the second time around. Mergichans So, what do not have it all their own way…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847805477</amazonuk>you get?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Honeyborne BlueII|title=Life on AirBlue Planet II|author=David AttenboroughJames Honeyborne and Mark Brownlow

|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I You may well remember when the sticking of a number '2' after a film title was one suggesting something of prestige - that the generation who grew up when David Attenborough first film had been so good it was fully justified to have something more. That has hardly been proven correct, but it has until recently almost been confined to the cinema - you barely got a giant among presenters TV series worthy of wildlife programmes on televisiona numbered sequel, and anything with his name attached was a mustnever in the world of non-watchfiction. At the timeIf someone has made a nature series about, say, I had no idea that he was also one Alaska (and boy aren't there are a lot of those these days) and wants to make another, why she just makes another - nothing would justify the pivotal characters in numeral. But some nature programmes do have the development of broadcastingprestige, having been controller of BBC2 the energy and director of programming for BBC TV for several the heft to demand follow-ups. And after five years. These daysin the making, he is probably best remembered for writing and presenting the nine ‘Life’ BBC's Blue Planet series, has delivered a comprehensive survey of all life on the planetsecond helping.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849908524</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Taylor_Owls|title=Mad About Mega Beasts!Owls: A Guide to Every Species|author=Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz (Illustrator)Marianne Taylor

|genre=For SharingAnimals and Wildlife|summary=When I was small feel like I was fascinated am being watched. A huge pair of piercing orange eyes are staring right at me, locking me into their gaze. In contrast with things that were big; big buildingsthe hardness of the deep-amber eyes, big vehiclessoft grey feathers fan out into the surrounding area, big animals. Howeverintricate, I have recently learnt that there is a size that is bigger than big – megadetailed and beautiful. What beasts, both from now An enigma; harsh and from gentle at the pastsame time, are large enough the owl is beckoning the reader to achieve this accolade and be welcomed into turn the hallowed pages of this book?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408329352</amazonuk>and take a closer look inside...

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Montgomery Tamed|title=Four FieldsTamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind|author=Tim DeeSy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

|summary=If asked Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall-Thomas are best friends who also happen to name, or even think of, four fields, the common man might well struggle, such is the chance of him living in a citybe ''New York Times'' best-selling authors. He might not think of the local park as a field, and he may turn to the field They first bonded over their shared love of the cloth of gold if a historiananimals: shortly after meeting, the field of dreams perhaps, or he might at least have something looking like a football pitch in his mindSy's eye. Tim Deepet ferret had given Liz a nasty bite, not a nature scientist as such but so in tune with the outside world he really doesnLiz didn't seem to have stopped indoors but to write this book in the past decade, seems like the sort of person who could hardly name four buildings, but would relish the chance to itemise his favourite fieldsmind at all. He is very doubtful any two in Britain are the same''She REALLY didn't mind being bitten by a weasel. Like snowflakesI knew we were soul mates, then, they can bear a closer examination to show their full picture – '' recalls Sy. ''Tamed and Dee picks on four, across the world and noted for events across the last few thousand years, to focus on. The result Untamed'' is a rich – if at times over-rich – summation of the birdlife above resulting collaboration between the fields, and everything Dee knows two friends as they share personal anecdotes and loves amazing stories about themthe animal world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099541378</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Barr_Elephant|title=Animal Lives: Lions10 Reasons to Love an Elephant|author=Sally MorganCatherine Barr and Hanako Clulow|rating=4.5

|summary=Ten reasons to love an elephant, eh? Well, personally, I've never needed ten reasons as they'Lions'' is part ve always been my favourite large animal, the gentle giants of Africa and India, but it was good to find out more about them. Perhaps the wonderful most surprising fact which I discovered was that they live in herds headed by their ''Animal Livesgrandmothers'' series, each focusing on a particular animal from the African savannah. This time, Female elephants and their calves stay together and the king of oldest female elephant is the beasts takes centre stage, one in a book that mixes stunning photography with plenty of fascinating facts charge as she knows where to find food and water - and figuresshe knows her herd. She remembers about people too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781715297</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Grindrod Outskirts|title=Animal Lives: GiraffesOutskirts|author=Sally MorganJohn Grindrod|rating=4.5

|summary=The new ''Animal LivesOutskirts'' series of picture books aims to help young children become animal experts, with each book focusing is an interesting take on a different wild animalphenomenon of the modern age: the introduction of the green belt of the countryside surrounding inner-city housing estates. The current series looks at animals John Grindrod grew up on the edge of one such estate in the African savannah 1960s and this time '70s, as he puts it is , ''I grew up on the last road in London.'' Grindrod explores the turn introduction of the noble giraffe green belt, and the various fights and developments it has gone through over the subsequent decades, as environmental and political arguments have affected planning decisions. Within this topic, he has somehow managed to take centre stagewind around his personal memories of childhood, producing a memoir with a lot of heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781715300</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Moss Wild|title=Animal LivesWild Kingdom: ElephantsBringing Back Britain's Wildlife|author=Sally MorganStephen Moss|rating=4.5

|summary=The eyeWildlife has been declining in Britain over the last few decades; it is an unfortunate by-catching image on product of human population growth, which in the cover of modern world has increased significantly. Through this glossy picture book certainly encourages young readers Moss suggests a few ways in which we can start to pick it up and start reading. Two cute baby elephants gaze confidently into bring back some of Britain's wildlife without compromising the camera lens whilst sharing a trunkful human way of lush green vegetationlife: we can co-exist with nature. There is just ''something'' about baby elephants, isn't there? Who could resist opening the book for a closer look?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781715319</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Sewell Spot|title=Animal Lives: CheetahsThe Big Bird Spot|author=Sally MorganMatt Sewell|rating=4.5

|summary=The first thing that struck me about this book was Recently I stood on a viewing platform at the excellent use RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs whilst a very helpful volunteer guided my sightline to one of visualsthe puffins who'd arrived on the cliffs in the last few days. Most of Finally, I found one, after visually sorting through all the photographs in other birds on the book are for a precipitous cliff face. It was great fun and very rewarding. The third double -page spread. in wild-life author and artist Matt Sewell's first book for children, ''The images are crisp and clear and provide a great closeBig Bird Spot'', shows some cliffs very like those at Bempton, but this time you're going to be looking for twenty-up view of these beautiful cats. Using three Little Auks, in amongst the photograph as a centrepieceguillemots, puffins, each two-page section examines a different aspect of cheetah behaviourherring gulls and razorbills. Subjects covered include growing up Oh, hunting, territory and cheetahs under threat. The sections you're looking for a pair of binoculars too: our bird watcher is very careless because you're going to have a brief introductory paragraph to find them in large, bold print and then several smaller facts surround the main every picture, sometimes including smaller photographs to illustrate the main points.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781715327</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Burkey_Ethics|title=The Bee: A Natural History Ethics for a Full World or, Can Animal-Lovers Save the World?|author=Noah Wilson-RichTormod V Burkey|rating=54

|summary=Bees have been making a bit of a media splash Burkey argues that man's current practices are outside the realms of late, due to heightened concern about their declining numbers and general welfare. Governments have been urged to do more to protect these important creatures, with a recent EU ban on neonicotinoid pesticides hailed as a 'victory for bees'nature. There He is no doubt that these prolific pollinators are a vital longer part of our the ecosystembut instead exists above it through his dominating ways. He is himself distanced even further by advancement in technologies, industry, money and all the human fascination pollution that comes with bees goes back to our ancient historythem. But just why do we find these hardworking insects so fascinating?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782401075</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ellie Laks|title=My Gentle Barn: where animals heal and children learn to hope|rating=4The natural world, Burkey argues, no longer exists for man because he has altered it by such things.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=As a child Ellie Laks was abusedIndeed, global warming has caused climate change, which, if it continues, but not only did she suffer at will make the hands of her abuser, she also had to endure parental indifference to what was happening to herworld unrecognisable. Her only relief came through animals - and even then she had For the world to cope when the animals were taken from her. As an adult she discovered that she had a real talent become fuller, for healing animals - and that they helped her it to heal too. In be a brilliant leap of intuition she realised world that if the animals could help her seeks to heal they could do the same provide for others and so the Gentle Barn was born - a place where animals were brought as a place needs of safety and where disadvantaged children and special every living thing, then it needs groups could use as therapyto change.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584883</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Fogden, Marianne Taylor and Sheri L WilliamsonLjung_Butterfly|title=Hummingbirds: A Life-Size Guide to Every SpeciesBuild a ... Butterfly|author=Kiki Ljung

|genre=ReferenceChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Ilove butterflies: they're one of the delights of my garden and it've s always been fascinated by hummingbirds - delicatea pleasure when there are children there and they see a butterfly close up, colourfulpossibly for the first time, beautifully as it rests on a flower. Kiki Ljung has given us the opportunity to learn about butterflies and brilliantly adapted also to extract nectar from flowersbuild a 3D model of our own. Perhaps most of all for me it's their acrobatic flight - The book is primarily aimed at the ability five to hover and manoeuvre which has me hooked: I could watch them for hourseight-year-old age group, amazed that birds whose weight can only meaningfully be given in ounces can do so much. but I was drawn have to this book as soon as confess that I saw it, for had a number great deal of reasonsfun building my own painted lady.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400893</amazonuk>I learned quite a bit too!

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marianne Taylor and Andrew PerrisJones_Foxes|title=Beautiful OwlsFoxes Unearthed: Portraits A Story of Arresting Species from Around the WorldLove and Loathing in Modern Britain|author=Lucy Jones

|genre=PetsAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Owls are strange birds: because they're crepuscular and twilight isn't As one of the best time for ''seeing'' birds with any clarity they tend to be largest predators left in Britain, the stuff fox is captivating: a comfortably familiar figure in our country landscapes; an intriguing flash of legend and we don't know as much about them as we mightbright-eyed wildness in our towns. On the Yet no other handanimal attracts such controversy, they're has provoked more column inches or been so ambiguously woven into our culture over centuries, perceived variously as a beautiful animal, a cunning rogue, a vicious pest and a worthy foe. As well as being the most recognisable ubiquitous of birdswild animals, perhaps because of it is also the least understood. Here Lucy Jones investigates the forward-facing eyes truth about foxes – delving into fact, fiction, folklore and would look almost human if it was not for that uncanny ability to swivel her own history with the neck to almost 360°creatures. Marianne Taylor has gone some way Discussing the debate on foxes, Jones asks what our attitudes towards correcting this lack of knowledge in ''Beautiful Owls''. She gives foxes says about us an overview of the species, traces them back to and our relationship with the earliest civilisations and shows their evolutionnatural world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005971</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jill HucklesbyMetisola_1st|title=Little Lost Hedgehog (RSPCA Fiction)My First Animals|author=Aino-Maija Metsola

|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Grace Fallon was out in her garden one eveningGet used to two simple words if you have a child, doing what she did every night - making certain ''What's That?'' You will hear it over and over and over again. If you are lucky they are pointing at something that her pet rabbits were fedyou actually know – chair, watered and safehat, my sense of regret. Sometimes they will point at something that is not too familiar. When she saw a movement in Here the flower bed she went to investigate and found parental practice of making something up comes into play – it's a baby hedgehog - bird type thing. Books that show images of items, colours or animals may seem a hoglet as they're correctly called. Wisely she didn't attempt little dull to touch the animal an adult, but told her parents and then kept watch from inside the house. When the hoglet reappeared and looked rather distressed her mother rang the RSPCA and was told to give it some food - dog food and crushed dog biscuits (NEVER milk as it can make any hog very sick). Later someone from a toddler learning about the RSPCA came round to collect the hoglet and take it to their centre for careworld, they are a who's who of what's that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407133217</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon BarnesPackham_Babies|title=How to be a BAD BirdwatcherAmazing Animal Babies|author=Chris Packham and Jason Cockcroft|rating=43.5|genre=Home Animals and FamilyWildlife|summary=''Look out of the windowMany children love animals, but they love baby animals even more.''<br>''See Would you rather watch a dog or watch a puppy? A cat or a kitten? A meerkat or a bird''<br>''Enjoy it.''<br>''Congratulations. You are now smaller meerkat? The answer is a birdwatcherno brainer to most children who enjoy the wide-eyed stumbling of youth that is not dissimilar to their own.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720866</amazonuk>However, someone needs to give them the facts about baby animals and who better than wildlife presenter Chris Packham?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam HayPrasadamHall_Pairs|title=Archie Pairs in the Guide Dog Puppy: Hero in TrainingGarden|author=Smriti Prasadam-Halls and Lorna Scobie|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often pick up a non-fiction book for the 7+ age group, find it riveting reading and informative about a subject with which I'm already familiar, but that was the case with ''Archie: Hero Pairs in Trainingthe Garden''. Archie is a puppy destined to be a guide dog fun book/game hybrid for a blind person and helittle fingers into creepy crawlies. It's just one story in a book about lift-the pups-in-trainingflap book with a difference, the working dogs, the adults who have guide dogs, or struggle because not only do you get to learn the techniques - or even what happens to the dogs who don't turn out to be see what's needed. There's underneath, you then must see if you can find a full range as well as information about what a guide dog costs - and it's not cheap!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>033053792X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt Whyman|title=Pig in matching pair on the Middle|rating=4same page.5|genre=Pets|summary=I'm so pleased I read this book. It's only But beware! You cannot just use the occasional writer who grabs me by the short and curlies with his observation process of human natureelimination because there are 7 flaps on each page, but accomplished children's writer Matt Whyman not only grabbed me, but sold me on the mini-pigs as well3 pairs to find. One poor creature is all alone with no partner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444711466</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Gordon Grice|title=The Book of Deadly Animals|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Animals and humans have long mixed, even though the one has almost always proven capable of being lethal Move on to the other. Many scientists in the past decided animals killing humans were aberrant, and that the real animal knew it was second best to humans, having been saved in the Ark, and respected our dominion over them. Even now, it seems, there are opinions that creatures attacking mankind are somehow rogue and need destroying. But where is the wrong in an animal behaving as its nature compels it? Similarly, the human wandering around the wilderness, or even the idiot woman feeding a black bear her own toddler's honey-dripping hand (true story - what the bear thought of the taste of honeyed fingers we don't know) is just the same in reverse - humans behaving as only humans can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919675</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Anthologies Reviews]]