The Dun Cow Rib - by John Lister-Kaye (Paperback)

About the Book

The story of a boy's adventures in the wonders of the natural world, from one of Britain's best-known naturalists and conservationists

Book Synopsis

John Lister-Kaye has spent a lifetime exploring, protecting and celebrating the landscape and its wildlife. His memoir The Dun Cow Rib is the story of a boy's awakening to the wonders of the natural world. Lister-Kaye's joyous childhood holidays--spent scrambling through hedges and ditches after birds and small beasts, keeping pigeons in the loft and tracking foxes around the edge of the garden--were the perfect apprenticeship for his two lifelong passions: exploring the wonders of nature, and writing about them. Threaded through his adventures--from moving to the Scottish Highlands to work with Gavin Maxwell, to founding the famous Aigas Field Centre--is an elegy to his remarkable mother, and a wise and affectionate celebration of Britain's natural landscape. The Dun Cow Rib joins Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain and Quarry Wood, Olivia Laing's To the River, and John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra in Canongate's remarkable nature writing list.

Review Quotes

"A wise and affectionate celebration of Britain's natural landscape."-- "--The Week"

"John Lister-Kaye is Scotland's high priest of nature writing; it's charming and moving to wander along with him... The Dun Cow Rib is a loving book."-- "--The Times"

"For my book of the year, however, there is only one contender. John Lister-Kaye is--and I am sure he won't mind me saying this--an 'old' nature writer, who has delighted his legion of readers since the early 70's. His memoir, The Dun Cow Rib, is the perfect winter read: funny, moving and packed with evocative recollections of a 50's childhood, lived under the shadow of his mother's chronic illness. Never once does he succumb to self-pity. His accounts of adventures as a (mostly) free-range child exploring the wonders of the natural world are simply delightful."----Stephen Moss, Guardian

About the Author

Sir John Lister-Kaye is the author of ten books on wildlife and the environment and has lectured all over the world. He runs the world-famous Aigas Field Centre. His book Gods of the Morning won the inaugural Richard Jefferies Prize. www.lister-kaye.co.uk www.aigas.co.uk