Summary
Mark Cocker’s brilliant description of his journeys in search of rooks, crows and ravens, birds that obsessed him and changed his life for ever
One night Mark Cocker followed the roiling, deafening flock of rooks and jackdaws which regularly passed over his Norfolk home on their way to roost in the Yare valley. From the moment he watched the multitudes blossom as a mysterious dark flower above the night woods, these gloriously commonplace birds were unsheathed entirely from their ordi…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780099485087 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0099485087 |
| Author: | Mark Cocker |
| Publisher: | Vintage Publishing |
| Imprint: | Vintage |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 224 |
| Release Date: | 15 August 2008 |
| Weight: | 168g |
| Dimensions: | 197mm x 129mm x 15mm |
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Critics Review
Luminously beautiful and dartingly intelligent, Cocker’s obsessive quest after the ancient trails of rooks across our dusk skies leads to an almost sacred space: a place where the landscape of the imagination and the lovingly, minutely observed realities of the natural world come to roost together – Richard MabeyGuaranteed to ensure that you never look at a crow in quite the same way again * Guardian *Fabulous… Like all classic works of natural history, is is an extraordinary revelation of riches and wonders and that lie at our doorsteps, completely ignored * Independent *A splendid book…Crow Country’s narrative of rookish discovery unfolds with splendid variety, incorporating scientific exposition, biography, environmental history, poetry, memoir and biography… Your heart beats faster as he describes a pack of tight-packed wigeon flushing in fear from an icy creak. You feel the shock of recognition as a barn owl meets his gaze. It’s infectiously emotional. At it’s most lyrical Crow Country matches the heights of that deeply eerie work of avian obsession JA Baker’s The Peregrine; yet at its most scientific, it could sit alongside the best ornithological monographs… Crow Country is a significant, beautiful work * New Statesman *Exquisitely written, passionate exploration of the local and commonplace * BBC Wildlife *Cocker’s gift is to draw you into his hobby so deftly that you quickly begin to share his every enthusiasm * Observer *Cocker is a beautiful writer…the twilight and his beloved rooks bring out the poet in him…a loving observation of the wonders on the wing in everyday England – Ann Wroe * Daily Telegraph *The nation’s most observant and intuitive of nature writers * Sunday Express *As obsessive a celebration of rook and jackdaw - and of human immersion in nature - as anyone could wish * Irish Times *A vivid example of the “new nature writing” it is a lyrical and intense evocation of the world of jackdaws and rook, and an elegy on watchfulness * Daily Telegraph *
About The Author
Mark Cocker
Mark Cocker is an author and naturalist. His fourteen books cover biography, history, literary criticism, and memoir.
- Crow Country was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2008 and won the New Angle Prize for Literature in 2009.
- A Claxton Diary won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2019.
- His most recent book, One Midsummer’s Day, was shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Award in 2023.
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