Author:Charles Foster
'Evocative and beautifully written, it's a deeply immersive read' Observer
'Charles Foster is the most original voice in nature writing today - funny, urgent, poetic, philosophical and deeply moving' Patrick Barkham
'Utterly exhilarating... This book demands we change our ways' Lee Schofield
'There aren't many writers like Charles around... a deeply thought-provoking book' James Aldred
'Reading this book feels like being made suddenly omniscient. In other words, you really have to' Tom Moorhouse
'Astonishingly playful, humorous, immensely varied and outrageously intelligent... The most inventive British writer presently at work on the theme of nature' Mark Cocker
What is it like to live in a world built by humans? These eight genre-blending stories reveal the complexity, beauty and fragility of wild lives - a brilliantly modern twist on classics like Watership Down and Tarka the Otter.
A fox, grown strong on pepperoni pizza from the dustbins of the East End, dances along a railway track towards Essex, the territory of wild foxes and wilder huntsmen.
An orca, mourning the loss of her mother in a valley west of Skye, knows that she must now lead the pod as matriarch. She swims again through her childhood, thinking about the old ways, the old roads, laid down thousands of years ago. But the old roads aren't so easy now.
At moonrise in a West Country river, an otter floats slowly downstream. The tide, though it pushes him landwards when it exhales, seems to pull him out when it inhales. He turns on his back. He can see the stars clearly for the first time and wonders if he can swim to them.
The wild has never stopped waiting. It has only ever been in exile, right under our noses, waiting to confound, outrage and re-enchant.
Highly imaginative... Evocative and beautifully written, it's a deeply immersive read.
—— ObserverCharles Foster is the most original voice in nature writing today - funny, urgent, poetic, philosophical and deeply moving. These shape-shifting, illuminating stories send us into the souls of other animals, bequeathing them personhood and giving us precious enlightenment and, hopefully, the inspiration to take action.
—— Patrick Barkham, author of Wild Green WondersUtterly exhilarating. Cry of the Wild gives us the chance to viscerally inhabit the lives of a cast of wild creatures as they navigate the rigours of a changed world. By turns tragic and joyful, every story yields fascinating insights into the way our fellow earthlings make their way through life. Through their eyes, we see ourselves, and the unholy ecological havoc we're wreaking. With the power both to move and to shame us, this book demands that we change our ways.
—— Lee Schofield, author of Wild FellCry of the Wild is spectacular and unique. It is beautiful and engrossing, full of erudition and heart. Foster's detailed eloquence brings us within a chromosome's thickness of experiencing first-hand our impacts on the lives of his eight wild protagonists - so that reading this book feels like being made suddenly omniscient. In other words, you really have to.
—— Tom Moorhouse, author of Ghosts in the HedgerowCharles Foster's new volume of animal stories may be challenging in content and deadly serious in terms of its moral purpose, but his prose is also astonishingly playful, humorous, immensely varied and outrageously intelligent. For my money he is the most inventive British writer presently at work on the theme of nature.
—— Mark Cocker, author of Our PlaceThere aren't many writers like Charles around... His ability to step across emotional boundaries and enter the consciousness of the wild makes for an exhilarating, immersive, yet at times disturbing read. For me, the end result is a deeply thought-provoking book that encourages the reader to explore for themselves exactly where they stand on issues of humanity, conservation and moral legacy.
—— James Aldred, author of Goshawk SummerFiercely polemical, forcing the reader to see the world in a new light... Charles Foster is an original thinker with a strangely compelling prose style... Cry of the Wild is thought-provoking, profound, at times infused with a beautifully wistful lyricism and often witty.
—— Country LifeFoster [brings] a sense of wonder: geese fly in from the north with snow falling from their wings; imagined through the eyes of a young rabbit, a white owl wafts through the still night air like thistledown, a strangely beautiful occurrence that might at any moment end the rabbit's life... He avoids the temptations of anthropomorphism while reminding us that we who share these traits are more vulnerably and elegantly animal than we pretend.
—— Literary ReviewA lyrical work of creative nonfiction containing eight stories of besieged animal lives. Emotional without being anthropomorphic, it is a thought-provoking read.
—— BBC Wildlife MagazineArdent and arresting... one of the darkest, most haunting books I've read in a long time... Yet the stories are also motivated by such depth of attention and love that their very existence offers some hope for a better future.
—— New StatesmanI have read Cry of the Wild with something approaching awe... The conviction with which these characters live on the page and suffer the assaults of existence can certainly live happily and proudly alongside Tarka.
—— Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the TidesLike Tarka, the stories in Cry of the Wild are not written for children. They take on the qualities of myth and magic which touch the source of our deepest feelings. How does the word on the printed page do this? ... the prose is muscular and astonishing... "Immersion" is a word commonly used about reading these days. I dislike it intensely. The sound of the word feels cold, unpleasant, like being pressed underwater. Not at all the deep sobbing that emerged from somewhere as I sat with these stories... This is not like any other nature book.
—— Caught by the RiverAt 43, the Mayor of London was diagnosed with adult-onset asthma - brought on by the polluted capital city air. Breathe is his rousing and thoughtful investigation into the politics of the climate crisis - and the path forward.
—— IndependentAn accessible, salutary read - well-written and sprinkled with anecdotes.
—— The HouseVery hopeful and interesting.
—— Richard HerringA slick read, passionate and authentic on climate issues.
—— GQInspiring, passionate, a great read!
—— Sarah Woolnough, CEO Asthma and Lung UKFor those feeling disheartened by the scale of the environmental crisis - and the lack of meaningful action on behalf of most political leaders - Breathe is a refreshing and galvanising call to action.
—— VogueQuite the page-turner.
—— Evening StandardAn eye-opening insight into what it's like trying to fight for the planet from inside the decision-makers.
—— IFL ScienceBrilliant
—— The TimesThis complex portrait illuminates cells' roles in immunity, reproduction, sentience, cognition, repair and rejuvination, malfunctions such as cancer, and treatments such as blood transfusions, drawing on author Siddhartha Mukherjee's varied experience as an immunologist, stem-cell scientist, cancer biologist and medical oncologist
—— NatureThe book is, at root, a call for a more integrated biology ... What gives The Song of the Cell its persuasiveness in calling for that new vision is precisely that it comes from a clinician steeped in the traditions of genomic and cell biology, and who has seen both the power and limitations of those approaches to produce actual cures
—— LancetWhat truly elevates the book are Mukherjee's accounts of his experiences as a clinician and the stories of the patients he has encountered. Some are moving, and all are reflective and insightful
—— Philip Ball, LancetHooked me so hard I read the entire book in one sitting. And then twice more
—— Lisa Feldman Barrett , Chronicle of Higher EducationThe old, solid world, if you believed in it at all, breaks into a glorious shimmer of limitless potential
—— Brian Morton , TabletRovelli has an uncanny knack for instilling wonder and explaining complex theories in plain, entertaining ways
—— Irish TimesI'm keen for everyone to read Helgoland: a wonderfully lucid and poetic account of the foundations of quantum physics. It combines a compelling history with Rovelli's own intriguing - and for me very appealing - views about the basis of all things
—— Anil Seth, author of Being You