Search results for ""Author Richard Smyth""

It's 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after the Great War. John Lowell, a naturalist who writes articles on the flora and fauna of the shoreline, and his wife Harriet lead a simple life, basking in their love for each other and enjoying the company of John's visiting old school friend, David. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier and pleasure-grounds a mile out to sea, unexpected tensions and temptations arise. As secrets multiply, Harriet, John and David must each ask themselves, what price is to be paid for pleasure?

Read more less

'Generous, moving and alive. A gift' - Tim Dee, author of Greenery'Intelligent, thought-provoking and always, always interesting' - Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment'Smyth writes with warmth and engaging perception about our relationship and understanding of the natural world on our doorsteps' - Jon Dunn, author of The Glitter in the Green'Fresh and tender and playful' - Patrick Galbraith, author of In Search of One Last SongWeren't they richer, rock pools, wasn't the seashore busier, when I was a kid?Richard Smyth had always been drawn to the natural world, but when he became a father he found a new joy and a new urgency in showing his kids the everyday wild things around them. As he and his children explore rockpools in Whitley Bay, or the woods and moors near his Yorkshire home, he imagines the world they might inhabit as they grow up. Through different objects discovered on their wanderings - a beech leaf, a jay feather, a limpetshell - Smyth examines his own past as well as that of the early natural historians, weaving together history, memoir, and environmentalism to form a new kind of nature writing: one that asks both what we have lost, and what we have yet to find.

Read more less

A Guardian `Readers’ Choice’ Best Book of 2017; Birdsong is the soundtrack to our world. We have tried to capture its fleeting, ephemeral beauty, and the feelings it inspires, for millennia.; In this captivating and lively account, Richard Smyth explores science, music, literature, landscape and the thousand different ways in which birdsong has moved us. A bright song on a lonely street can lift our mood, bringing comfort, wonder or joy. But can we learn to listen, really listen, to what the birds are saying? Or do they just tell us back our own tales?

Read more less

This book is a treasure trove of English oddities, crammed with the most curious stories, remarkable facts and unexpected goings-on from the country’s long and convoluted history. From frogs’ legs at Stonehenge to knicker elastic in the Blitz, this is England – the unauthorised biography.

Read more less

After the Battle of Hastings, King Harold’s tattoos were used to identify his body. Elizabeth of York was the model for the Queen in the first deck of cards. Queen Victoria appears on the 1851 Census. She lists her occupation as ‘the Queen’. Henry VIII used a wheelchair and wore glasses. This fun little book, with 400 fantastic facts about British royal history and more than 100 illustrations, will delight fans of British history everywhere!

Read more less

Phantom in the library! The bizarre true story of a Victorian haunting revealed! King cholera! The day that death came to the Dock family! Exploding mummies! The weirdest events of the blitz examined! A Yorkshire tragedy: Fifteenth-century murder at Calverley Hall! Leeds has one of the darkest histories on record. From the fatal Dripping Riot of 1865, sparked by the theft of two pounds of congealed fat, to the violin-playing killer Charles Peace, said to still haunt the city’s prison cells, you will find all manner of horrible events inside this book. With plague and disease in the city slums, dreadful disasters in Roundhay Park, and riots in the city centre, this is the real story of Yorkshire’s first city.

Read more less

''Generous, moving and alive. A gift'' - Tim Dee, author of Greenery''Intelligent, thought-provoking and always, always interesting'' - Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment''Smyth writes with warmth and engaging perception about our relationship and understanding of the natural world on our doorsteps'' - Jon Dunn, author of The Glitter in the Green''Fresh and tender and playful'' - Patrick Galbraith, author of In Search of One Last SongWeren''t they richer, rock pools, wasn''t the seashore busier, when I was a kid?Richard Smyth had always been drawn to the natural world, but when he became a father he found a new joy and a new urgency in showing his kids the everyday wild things around them. As he and his children explore rockpools in Whitley Bay, or the woods and moors near his Yorkshire home, he imagines the world they might inhabit as they grow up. Through different objects discovered on their wanderings - a beech leaf, a jay feather, a limpetshell - Smyth examines his own pa

Read more less

A group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other’s changing bodies before a Friday night disco… A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev… An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose… The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces – their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son’s reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.

Read more less