In lyrical prose, Hamer revealed a curious kinship with moles - creatures who, like him, often work alone. Like Laurie Lee, Hamer is an elegist, attracted to what's beautiful precisely because it's poised to pass away.

From the first few words I knew I had encountered loving honesty and no one needs more than that. It is rare to encounter such respect and understanding of nature for herself.

How To Catch A Mole is a beguiling mixture: part autobiography, part handbook, part travel book, part philosophical treatise. I’m happy to report that it succeeds on each level

Not only a compelling meditation on the 'little gentleman in black velvet'…but also a fascinating, lyrical account of the loneliness and beauty of life on the margins, a memoir of vagrancy

This is a wonderful book about our relationship with the earth, with other animals and with our own troubled humanity. It has taught me a lot. I feel great love for it.

How to Catch a Mole is a beautiful, elegiac ode to a remarkable creature. It’s also an exploration of Hamer’s life as he approaches his sunset years. Each page is filled with wonder, love, regret, humility and a sense of wonder (and oneness) with nature.

[How To Catch a Mole] has the feel of an enduring classic. It is the testament of a man who has learnt to see, who has the nerve to interrogate his own annihilation and who…handles language superbly

Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment.

[Hamer] offers us some heart-rending images which linger in the mind long after you’ve closed the book

Marc Hamer's uplifting writings shed some light on the velvety creatures burrowing beneath our countryside.

Marc Hamer's wonderful How To Catch A Mole took me completely by surprise. It certainly is a book about
catching moles but it is also a book of sound philosophy, poignant biography and a zen-like meditation on life and nature. Brilliant.

The wisdom contained in this elegiac and intensely moving book doesn't need embellishing

It's not often you meet a mole-catcher, let alone read their story. Marc Hamer's uplifting writings shed some light on the velvety creatures burrowing beneath our countryside

[A] distinctive, quietly revelatory, book…a somewhat unlikely interplay of Hamer’s easeful poetry and observations with accounts of both the specialist life of moles and his own biography. Skilfully woven with eloquent simplicity, it offers a rich and sustained meditation on the task of apprehending the complex and delicate interconnectedness of life and land

A distinctive, quietly revelatory book... a rich and sustained meditation on the task of apprehending the complex and delicate interconnectedness of life and land. Its pages have much to teach us.

A beguiling mixture of autobiography, practical handbook and philosophical treatise

[A] wholly original book

A haunting memoir... [Hamer] writes of them [moles] and their underground lives with deep knowledge and tenderness, finding in their solitary habits an echo of his own vagrant nature

The island is a metaphor for anyone who has ever been alone... It is about what happens when everything you are used to falls away, which is something we are all experiencing at the moment.

An utterly engrossing read.

Tamsin Calidas’s tale of moving to a remote Scottish croft has become a lockdown must-read… a glittering (and controversial) account.

The trials and triumphs of isolated living are laid bare in this often shatteringly honest read.

As in the case of Tara Westover’s Educated, it is impossible not to marvel at all the author has been through.

A mesmeric tale of emotional resilience and the recuperative powers of the natural world... Essential reading.

The memoir of the year ... groundbreaking.

A brave, beautiful and unforgettable book - a book that overflows with love. Tamsin writes exquisitely about life, love, pain, death and rebirth and the healing power of nature. Great joy has flowed into my life from reading this. It touched me so deeply - I was moved to tears - and I could not put it down. I know it will help and greatly inspire others' lives. A sea of hands will reach for I Am An Island, carrying it like a great flock of birds, across the world. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Calidas is adept at illustrating her emotional and mental state throughout her experiences, effectively using the Scottish landscape as a means to emphasise her plights and successes. This is an extremely honest account of human survival in the face of unimaginable pain and loss. So poignant and stark...Never as relevant as it is now, Calidas' battle with isolation and loneliness is both moving and inspiring. The desire for human contact and interaction is soothed by a deep kinship with nature, which remains steadfast no matter what.

A wonderful memoir

Powerfully observed

I was profoundly moved by I am an Island - the beauty, emotion, power and poetry of its words. As subtle as it is forceful, this is a complex and poetic account of a life lived raw. A skilful, finespun memoir which grabs you by the throat; clutches your heart and tenderly caresses your cheek in one beguiling movement. I urge you to read it.