Search results for ""Author James MacDonald Lockhart""

Book SynopsisWinner of The Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011 and the Authors'' Foundation Roger Deakin Award in 2011A stunning debut in the tradition of Robert Macfarlane and Helen MacdonaldOf all the birds of the British Isles, the raptor reigns supreme, sparking the imagination like no other. In this magnificent hymn to these beautiful animals, James Macdonald Lockhart explores all fifteen breeding birds of prey on these shores from the hen harrier swimming over the land in the dregs of a May gale on Orkney, to the ghostly sparrowhawk displaying in the fields around his home in Warwickshire. This is a book that will change how we think of our own skies.Trade Review‘Lockhart's prose is so intimate, urgent, and visceral as to make his darkly resonant ruminations almost unfailingly gripping’ Independent ‘A hymn in praise of living, soaring, terrifying grandeur … his exquisite, poetic language is a sensuous delight without sacrificing scientific accuracy … A tour de force’ Daily Mail ‘Lockhart puts the rapture back in the raptor. Raptor rips at its words, turning them into exquisite portraits of the utter wild, shaping soaring, obsessive beauty out of the British landscape and its imperial birds. A true heir to J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, and T.H. White's The Goshawk' Philip Hoare ‘In Lockhart’s soaring debut he laces vivid prose with illuminating facts … He elegantly depicts these creatures of the sky and, in doing so, celebrates the natural richness of the country over which they fly’ Financial Times ‘If you publish a book on birds of prey in the tumultuous wake of Helen MacDonald’s prizewinning H is for Hawk, you expect comparisons. James MacDonald Lockhart can relax. His book is outstanding … Wild birds of prey represent the living spirit of a place- of Britain. In this delicate, complex, open-ended book, full of freshness and movement, he captures that wild spirit without ever making it feel captive’ Sunday Times ‘Lockhart brings out both the birds’ ecstatic gifts of flight but also the tragedy and triumph of their predatory lifestyle… His descriptions are as precise as they are inventive’ Observer ‘Lockhart is stepping towards the distinguished company of the great modern literary books on birds of prey… The writing, at times, is as good as anything we have on the subject to date’ Country Life ‘His understanding of raptor ethology shines’ Nature ‘Any bird of prey fan will find it irresistible … thoroughly recommended’ BirdGuides ‘Nothing prepared me for the sustained brilliance and intensity of this book … Warm, intimate, full of wonder and delight in the ways the birds revealed themselves’ Caught by the River

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2023 Highland Book PrizeJoyful and mindful, a powerful argument for being still and listening' Sunday TimesA book about birds, birdsong and the countryside they inhabit, from the critically acclaimed author of Raptor.In Wild Air, James Macdonald Lockhart sets out to write about a series of birds as though he has his granny's role of listening to birds' songs and calls and relaying what she heard to her aged and by then quite deaf father the famous naturalist Seton Gordon. From a nightjar's strange churring song on a heath in the south of England, to a lapwing displaying over the machair in the Outer Hebrides, he writes about eight different birds who he has spent most time with, returned to most often and relays what he hears.The eight species are all representative of a different habitat. Nightjars on a lowland heath; shearwaters on a mountain overlooking the sea; dippers on a river; skylarks in farmland; ravens in woodland; divers on a loch; lapwings on the coastTrade Review'My oh my this is a beautiful book. My favourite kind of nature writing: quiet, subtle, watchful, immanent.' Helen Jukes, author of A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings ‘Lockhart is committed to understanding each (bird) in its habitat, and to capturing that sense of place in the song… It is both joyful and mindful, a powerful argument for being still and listening.Lockhart doesn’t make the point explicitly, but I think he would say that these songs, and these creatures, are beautiful in themselves, and that beauty alone justifies protecting them and enjoying them — and writing about them. At the close of the book, he passes a fellow enthusiast in the dark out listening for nightingales. It’s “just extraordinary”, the man says. The book is pretty extraordinary too.’Sunday Times ‘As I see it, Lockhart is really attempting to enter into the realm of these creatures, and to convey a feeling of what their lives are like… He writes beautifully, using words to paint exquisite portraits of his subjects… Poetry, folklore and natural history are woven into the mix. But what I particularly liked about this book is that Lockhart treats the birds and their surroundings as inextricably linked. A dipper’s stream is painted as vividly as the animal itself, giving a sense of clear, cold, running water, small pools, mossy banks.’ Financial Times ‘(A) fascinating insight into the lives of the twittering, fluttering creatures that share our world.’ The Herald ‘Lockhart’s skills as a naturalist are second to none, his observations of skylarks especially fresh and sharp.’ Countryfile ‘Enchanting’ Nature

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2023 Highland Book PrizeJoyful and mindful, a powerful argument for being still and listening' Sunday TimesA book about birds, birdsong and the countryside they inhabit, from the critically acclaimed author of Raptor.In Wild Air, James Macdonald Lockhart sets out to write about a series of birds as though he has his granny's role of listening to birds' songs and calls and relaying what she heard to her aged and by then quite deaf father the famous naturalist Seton Gordon. From a nightjar's strange churring song on a heath in the south of England, to a lapwing displaying over the machair in the Outer Hebrides, he writes about eight different birds who he has spent most time with, returned to most often and relays what he hears.The eight species are all representative of a different habitat. Nightjars on a lowland heath; shearwaters on a mountain overlooking the sea; dippers on a river; skylarks in farmland; ravens in woodland; divers on a loch; lapwings on the coast

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