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Greenery
Greenery
Oct 16, 2024 6:36 AM

Author:Tim Dee,Roy McMillan

Greenery

Brought to you by Penguin.

One December, in midsummer South Africa, Tim Dee was watching swallows. They were at home there, but the same birds would soon begin journeying north to Europe, where their arrival marks the beginning of spring.

Greenery recounts how Tim Dee tries to follow the season and its migratory birds, making remarkable journeys in the Sahara, the Straits of Gibraltar, Sicily, Britain, and finally by the shores of the Arctic Ocean in northern Scandinavia. On each adventure, he is in step with the very best days of the year - the time of song and nests and eggs, of buds and blossoms and leafing.

'A joyful, poetic hymn to spring... Dee is one of our greatest living nature writers' Observer

'A masterpiece... I can't imagine I'll ever stop thinking about it' Max Porter

'Fascinating, horizon-expanding, life-enhancing' Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden

© Tim Dee 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Reviews

A joyful, poetic hymn to spring...[by] one of our greatest living nature writers... Greenery is an education in looking at, and loving, nature… It is a lesson in how to love the world, in how to look at it, and behind everything there beats a deeper message: that spring cannot exist without winter, that life needs death to define it.

—— Alex Preston , Observer

This book has changed the way I think about seasons and migration, humans and birds, time and life. He is a virtuoso handler of sound, knowledge and language. It's a masterpiece. I can't imagine I'll ever stop thinking about it.

—— Max Porter

A masterpiece of nature writing… No one else in the genre shows anything like Dee’s command of prose, tone, voice, pace, depth and phrasing… It’s the sort of book that, in its expressive power, its creativity, the richness of its humanity, might make the world worth saving.

—— Richard Smyth , New Statesman

“Nature Writing”, says the classification on the back. Partly true. He’s good at that. But leaving it there is a bit like saying that Wordsworth was a gardener and Springsteen is a harmonica player. Dee is one of our best living writers of non-fiction, and Greenery...is perhaps his best book yetIt couldn’t be more timely.

—— Michael Kerr , Daily Telegraph

A superb nature writerMiraculousArdent, playful, quietly subversivethis is how Dee has always written, but his originality and learning mean he never needs to resort to the devotional swooning that has always plagued writing about the non-human world… It’s a deeply affecting [ending]… The effect is like a painter’s varnish, deepening shadows but intensifying colours. You go back to the start.

—— William Atkins , Guardian

Greenery...brims with the same thrilling sense as the season it charts... Dee writes like no other nature author I know.

—— Mark Cocker , New Statesman *Books of the Year*

Greenery is as full of the sensibility and wit that marked Dee’s previous books… The prose is as sharp and agile as the beak and movements of his ‘most needed’ bird, the redstart, and the range of reference and thought is astonishing.

—— Caspar Henderson , Spectator

His writing is a delight, both elegant and provocative… This charming, meandering…book ends with a completely unexpected double whammy, which had me first wiping away tears and then smiling in delight. It’s a reminder that, however grim things look, there is always the freshness and rebirth of spring to look forward to.

—— Constance Craig Smith , Daily Mail

For a beautiful evocation of this restorative draft of a season, look no further than Tim Dee’s new book Greenerya poetic and profound meditation on the natural (and human) world encountered as he follows spring around the globe. It’ll lift your heart and take you places while reminding you that the most important things are close at hand.

—— Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground , Yorkshire Post

ExtraordinaryDee has an enormous aptitude for burrowing into research and then opening it out map-like over the tangible natural world… [Greenery is his] most personal and spectacular nature memoir to date.

—— Irish Independent

As rich and rewarding as spring itself, this book by one of our leading nature writers is a celebration of the temperate world’s most exciting season. It’s a multi-layered book, full of memories…science and poetry, history and humour. And great sadness too… This is a lifetime of springs recounted by a man in fall.

—— Ben Hoare , BBC Wildlife

Crammed with fascinating, horizon-expanding, life-enhancing tidbits of knowledge from a person who has spent years watching, looking, learning… Of course, as Dee fans will expect, there is blissful poetry in his proseGreenery is a portal into a deeper understanding of spring and a richer appreciation of the natural world. It is about death, life, love, planetary time: the dynamics of life on planet earth.

—— Lucy Jones , Caught by the River *Book of the Month*

Joyful... Hard to resist. Greenery is a book of hope… Each new encounter reads like a script for the very best kind of radio programme, full of insight and lightly-worn expertise.

—— Isabel Lloyd , Tablet

Dee’s writing sings… When scattered personal anecdotes finally crystallise into the recent event in Dee’s life, the heart breaks… A book best experienced like spring itself, blooming and fading at its own pace.

—— Josh Pugh Ginn , i

Tim Dee follows the wake-up call of the wild, treading the path of migrating swallows from South African shores to Scandinavia. A colourful account of spring's awakening with tales from Sámi reindeer herders also in the mix.

—— Wanderlust

Tim Dee's powers of description are masterful… This sumptuous account of spring's progress is a truly remarkable book, written with exquisite pathos.

—— Alex Roddie , Great Outdoors

Dee layers…contrasting voices to great effect. And his visual writing shows us more than a camera could

—— Lucy Ingrams , Oldie

Greenery is an anatomy of spring… the lush prose…resonate[s]… When scattered personal anecdotes finally crystallise into the recent events in Dee’s like, the heart breaks

—— Josh Pugh Ginn , UK Press Syndication

Greed, ambition, manipulation, secrets, nifty plotting and a cracking denouement add up to a suspenseful and spine-tingling page-turner

—— Guardian

An engaging page-turner that will keep you guessing

—— Daily Express

One By One is a galloping read packed with dark secrets and all the page-turning prowess you would hope for from a psychological thriller and murder mystery

—— Susan Swarbrick, Herald

The Queen of the modern murder mystery returns with a delicious homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None

—— RED

Agatha Christie fans will love this ingenious thriller...the pace is fast and furious and the twists satisfying

—— Good Housekeeping

Books shouldn't really be gobbled down like cake but with Ware's there's no other way

—— Metro

Ware's novel is deliciously sly

—— Joan Smith, Sunday Times

This engaging page-turner keeps you guessing

—— Paul Donnelley , Sunday Express

Writing with such honesty is a trademark of [Winn's] style

—— The Marshwood Vale Magazine

'9 new books to read this September'

—— SheerLuxe

Powerful

—— Writers Forum

Beautiful

—— Herald

'Country Life Book of the Week'

—— Country Life

Down to earth yet astonishing . . . touching

—— This England

So beautifully told

—— i

Want a book that's going to leave you chilled to the bone? This is it!

—— Fabulous Magazine

Sarah Pearse's chilling debut is making waves. The Sanatorium certainly has an eerie, cinematic appeal [...] With whispers of The Shining in setting and The Girl on the Train in pace.

—— Vanity Fair

I absolutely loved The Sanatorium - it gave me all the wintry thrills and chills. It was just wonderful.

—— Lucy Foley, bestselling author of THE HUNTING PARTY and THE GUEST LIST

Genuinely scary and deliciously atmospheric, and one of the best books of 2021, this international bestseller is guaranteed to give you goosebumps.

—— Woman & Home

What a page-turner! Like Agatha Christie crossed with Scandi noir, and doing with Swiss mountains what Jane Harper books do with the Australian outback. Loved it, and can't wait for the next Elin book!

—— Andrea Mara, author of ALL HER FAULT
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