A Claxton Diary

A spellbinding nature diary that’s up there with the greatest… [Cocker] regularly follows up a beady description with a wild, glorious overview, followed by an astonishing fact or two… Hurrah for Mark Cocker! ***** * Mail on Sunday *Being a naturalist, Cocker’s great strength is in the breadth of his senses: his essays seem to cover almost everything he has seen, heard or smelled in the land around his home. He writes clearly, and with a style that has a ring of poetry about it without being pretentious or precious… Spending time with his acutely observant essays will convince many readers that the Great Barrier Reef and vast jungles of Africa can be understood best only by first understanding the startling drama, diversity and complicated natural dynamics of a humble corner of Britain. * Spectator *If you’ve never read Mark Cocker, then you must. His style is sharp, selfless, and wonderfully evocative, his knowledge deep and wide-ranging but lightly borne, his curiosity joyful and infectious. – Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year *If you can’t get out to enjoy the spring weather, immerse yourself in the natural world with Mark Cocker… his writing transports you there. * Mail on Sunday *If you already know Mark Cocker’s work, you’ll need no persuading to buy this – if you don’t, treat yourself to a very fine collection of nature essays. * Bird Watching, Book of the Month *A Claxton Diary is a collection of his finest essays written on wildlife and encounters with nature. * UK Press Syndication *[Cocker] has a dream-like poetic edge, a touch of surreality that tips over into gentle humour… Cocker’s gift is that he can make you look – as he does – at blackbirds in a new way, or, shifting to the micro-scale, at ants bustling about in the cracks between paving slabs. – Brian Morton * Times Literary Supplement *A master of short-form writing… Cocker combines forensic observation of minutiae with grander universal truths… Exquisite essential reading. – Ben Hoare * BBC Wildlife *Wonderful. * The Simple Things *Mark Cocker is one of the many modern nature writers who I admire… and his latest book, A Claxton Diary, is as well written as all his others. – Paul Cheney * Paul Cheney’s Books of the Year *

Mark Cocker is an author and naturalist whose thirteen books include works of biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. His book Crow Country was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2008 and won the New Angle Prize for Literature in 2009. With the photographer David Tipling he published Birds and People in 2013, a massive survey described by the Times Literary Supplement as ‘a major literary event as well as an ornithological one.’ Our Place- Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife Before It Is Too Late? was described by the Sunday Times as ‘impassioned, expert and always beautifully written … a sobering and magnificent work.’ His most recent book, A Claxton Diary, won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2019.