A Life in Nature

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. * Washington Post *
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. – Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Life of Cows
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 – Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *
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 * Times Literary Supplement *
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. – Max Porter
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. * Washington Post *
[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 * Oldie *
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. * Sunday Express *
[Hamer] offers us some heart-rending images which linger in the mind long after you’ve closed the book * Daily Mail *
Marc Hamer’s uplifting writings shed some light on the velvety creatures burrowing beneath our countryside. * National Geographic *

Marc Hamer was born in the North of England and moved to Wales over thirty years ago. After spending a period homeless, then working on the railway, he returned to education and studied fine art in Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. He has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design and taught creative writing in a prison before becoming a gardener. Both his books, A Life in Nature; or How to Catch a Mole and Seed to Dust have been longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

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