Song Of The Rolling Earth: A Highland Odyssey

Description

Conservationist and naturalist John Lister-Kaye, founder of the Aigas Field Centre, writes about his life in the glens, the wildlife that surrounds him and the primeval magical exchange that takes place between man and nature once so central to ancient civilisations. He describes finding the ruined nineteenth-century estate that is to become Aigas, taking it over and turning it into a going concern as an Educational Centre, and his own personal motivation, following the Torrey Canyon oil spillage and natural disasters in the 1960s, to become a conservationist. Interspersed within the narrative detail are engaging and enlightening descriptions of flora and fauna. John Lister-Kaye carries the reader very effectively into the minute worlds he observes and backs up keen scrutiny with facts and figures. SONG OF THE ROLLING EARTH is a notably entertaining and enlightening addition to the canon of naturalist writing that includes Gavin Maxwell's RING OF BRIGHT WATER, Henry Williamson's TARKA THE OTTER and the works of Gerald Durrell.

Born in 1946, John Lister-Kaye worked with celebrated author Gavin Maxwell on a tiny Hebridean wildlife sanctuary and in 1977 opened the Aigas Field Centre, the first privately owned field studies centre in Britain.

'A wonderfully lyrical book surging with the sheer joy of nature, from Scotland's premier nature writer.' Magnus Magnusson; ' An environmental classic', SPECTATOR; 'Lister-Kaye establishes himself as one of the finest nature writers in the language', SCOTSMAN; 'Wonderful and evocative', GLASGOW EVENING NEWS; 'A masterful piece of storytelling', COUNTRY LIFE