The Stubborn Light of Things: A Nature Diary

Description

When I lived in London I barely noticed the winter solstice. Nothing slowed, contracted or dimmed to mark the shortest day of the year, for, like all cities, London has all but left such trifling considerations behind. But now I am in Suffolk, and the difference could not be more marked. I wake in dim half-light, the yellow windows of nearby farmhouses glimmering across frost-white fields. At three the rooks begin to gather in the leafless trees, and flocks of starlings start to move from place to place. When darkness falls, the nights are blacker than I've ever seen, the starfield so breathtaking that Orion and the Plough are lost amid a million other points of light. The Stubborn Light of Things will transform the way you see the world. A Londoner for over twenty years, moving from flat to Tube to air-conditioned office, Melissa Harrison knew what it was to be insulated from the seasons. Adopting a dog and going on daily walks helped reconnect her with the cycle of the year and the quiet richness of nature all around her: swifts nesting in a nearby church; ivy-leaved toadflax growing out of brick walls; the first blackbird's song; an exhilarating glimpse of a hobby over Tooting Common. Moving from scrappy city verges to ancient, rural Suffolk, where Harrison eventually relocates, this diary - compiled from her beloved Nature Notebook column in The Times - maps her joyful engagement with the natural world and demonstrates how we must first learn to see, and then act to preserve, the beauty we have on our doorsteps - no matter where we live. A perceptive and powerful call-to-arms written in mesmerising prose, The Stubborn Light of Things confirms Harrison as a central voice in British nature writing.

Melissa Harrison is a novelist and nature writer. She contributes a monthly Nature Notebook column to The Times and writes for the FT Weekend, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Her most recent novel, All Among the Barley, was the UK winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. It was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year and a Book of the Year in the Observer, the New Statesman and the Irish Times. Her previous books have been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction (At Hawthorn Time) and the Wainwright Prize (Rain). She lives in rural Suffolk, the setting for the hit podcast which accompanies this book, also called The Stubborn Light of Things. @M_Z_Harrison.

"A nature writer if ever there was one." -- Ali Smith "The journal of a writer to compare to Thomas Hardy ... Melissa Harrison is among our most celebrated nature writers." -- Times "If you haven't heard Harrison's soul-soothing podcast, then this eponymous nature diary, following her move from south London to the Suffolk countryside, should be a joyful reason to do so. It's the perfect companion piece to this chronicle of her journey to uncover the nature that lurks, often unnoticed, on our doorsteps wherever we live, and celebrate its way of signalling the seasons." -- National Geographic "There's something for every flora and fauna enthusiast in Melissa Harrison's new book ... inspirational." -- BBC Wildlife Magazine "[Harrison] reflects on the changing habitat around her with passionate understanding and gentle encouragement that we follow suit." -- Guardian "Reading The Stubborn Light of Things is like stumbling headlong into a bath of joy." -- Bookmunch PRAISE FOR ALL AMONG THE BARLEY "Brilliant and timely ... an important book by a writer of great gifts." -- Robert Macfarlane "A work of rare magic." -- Helen Macdonald "I've been following Melissa Harrison's work with interest for some time now, and with this novel she's done what I've long suspected she would: she's written a masterpiece." -- Jon McGregor