Selected writings 1974-1999

Selected Writings includes the bext of Richard Mabey's important and wide-ranging journalism, from nature diaries to writings on travel and environmental art, to full-blown investigations of forestry, farmi ng and developmental scandals.

We meet flamingos in the Camargue flamenco singers in Extremaduran cork-oak forest; the sculptor David Nash's 'Wooden Boulder' and the biologist James Lovelock's theory of Gaia; the grim environmental imagery of the Gulf War and the inspiration of the recovery of our woodland from the devastation of the great storms of 1987 and 1990: an archetypal village in Middle England, and the teeming cosmopolitan wildlife of London's East End.

Through the many disparate pieces run the common threads of creativity and autonomy of nature, the importance of the sense of locality, and our thraldom to the seasons. And as the national debate about the future of the coutnryside moves ever more centre stage, so the themes which have been explored in Mabey's writings take on a new relevance.