This Birding Life: The Best of the Guardian's Birdwatch: The Diary of a Lifetime's Hobby

by StephenMoss (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.60

  Aurum's first collaboration with Guardian Books, A Lifetime of Mountains , a collection of Harry Griffin's much-loved Country Diary , was a beautiful book and a significant sales success, with 11,000 copies sold. For its second Guardian book, Aurum collects another popular Guardian column, this time by an Aurum author whose last book was a critical and sales success. Stephen Moss is the author of A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching , which has sold over 8000 copies already and been praised by John Carey in the Sunday Times and by Simon Barnes, author of How to be a Bad Birdwatcher . Moss's 'Birdwatch' column has over the years included nostalgic reminiscences on birdwatching as a child, accounts of birding expeditions to places as farflung as St Kilda and even Antarctica, of birding on his honeymoon in the Gambia, the birds on his garden feeder and, recently, introducing his toddler son to a first awareness of birds. Now, the best of these 'Birdwatch' columns are collected into a beautiful miniature hardback, tastefully designed and illustrated with line drawings, and together they build into a touching and fascinating chronicle of how one person's hobby has endured and evolved and in turn enriched a whole life.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.83

  'Chatty, genuine, sincere and often quite funny. They make a less-than-dedicated birder such as myself wish he had tried a bit harder' British Wildlife 'Full of good stuff if you want to settle down for a good read. An excellent stocking-filler' Bird Watching Stephen Moss's collection of 'Birdwatch' columns from the Guardian was nothing less than a birdwatching autobiography, covering his life from early coot-watching as a young boy, through teenage cycle trips to Dungeness, to adult travels around the world as a TV producer everywhere from the Gambia to Antarctica. In hardback it sold extremely well, thanks not least to its truly beautiful cover linocut illustration by Robert Gillmor, the doyen of bird artists whose jackets grace all the illustrious Collins New Naturalist volumes. Now it is re-published in paperback - retaining the glowing kingfisher on the front - to tie in with the publication of Stephen's new book for Aurum, a diary of his birdwatching year (to be published in the same miniature hardback format and with another Robert Gillmor jacket illustration). Moss writes regularly features for the Guardian in addition to his column, and gives regular lectures to birdwatching clubs and RSPB groups. Stephen Moss is a producer for the BBC's Natural History Unit, and most recently produced Alan Titchmarsh's The Nature of Britain. Past series include all Bill Oddie's Birding with Bill Oddie and Springwatch. His other books include A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching (also Aurum), Blokes and Birds and Gardening for Birds. He lives in Somerset.