The Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2019 magazine

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

1

Packed with nature spotter guides, seasonal recipes, activity ideas and celebrations of festivals and special days, this is the perfect book for outdoor adventures.

Out 3rd October 9781788004824 • £9.99 • Hardback Find out more at www.nosycrow.com 2

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

Welcome to the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2019 In these challenging times and facing a climate crisis, British nature writing continues to blossom. The books that my fellow judges and I have longlisted and shortlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize demonstrate the role that nature writing can play in shining a spotlight on wider social, environmental and personal issues.

Chairing the judging panel for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize is a genuine joy – the prize which is in its sixth year, is awarded annually to the book which most successfully reflects the ethos of renowned nature writer Alfred Wainwright’s work, to inspire readers to explore the outdoors and to nurture a respect for the natural world.

JULIA BRADBURY Chair of the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize judging panel

Natural landscapes and the creatures that inhabit them are treasures of this planet and within the pages of this magazine you will find a selection of books that will certainly inspire you.

Look out for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize logo in bookshops, libraries and online and we hope you are able to enjoy as many of these wonderful books as you can.

The winner will be announced at BBC Countryfile Live at Castle Howard on 15th August, where you can come along and join us for the ceremony.

Happy Reading!

THE 2019 SHORTLIST

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

3

SHORTLISTED BOOK

Thinking On My Feet

by Kate Humble Thinking On My Feet tells the story of Kate’s walking year – shining a light on the benefits of this simple activity. As she explores the reasons why we walk – whether for creative energy, challenge and pleasure, or therapeutic benefits, Kate’s reflections and insights will encourage, motivate and spur readers into action.

THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKING 4

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

Kate Humble is a big fan of walking, so much so that she ranks the importance of having that morning walk alongside her first cup of tea. Written in diary form and set over the course of a year, she tells us of life’s ups and downs, the places that she travels to all over the world and, most importantly, the walks that she undertakes, both long and short. These are often taken alone with her dog, Teg, or with groups of friends and their children and hounds.

When she is away, she doesn’t miss the opportunity to ramble, as she has concluded that this is the best way to understand a new city or region as you pace its streets.

“This book makes you want to get up, get out and get walking.

And it’s not just about getting out to walk the dogs – it’s a human need.”

- Prize Judging Panel

A cancelled assignment means that she has an opportunity to walk a long-distance footpath close to home, spending nine days walking the Wye Valley. She also meets people who have used walking as a form of coping with the trials and tribulations of life, from cancer survivors to a soldier recovering from PTSD and therapy sessions conducted whilst walking around Central Park.

Being a diary it covers all aspects of life from the mundane, detailing the routines of home life, putting the washing in, squeezing more things in than time allows, to the significant events that happen over the course of a year. But primarily this is a book about walking and Humble is a big advocate of the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying the natural world.

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

Kate Humble is a farmer, writer, activist, entrepreneur and one of the UK’s best-known TV presenters. She is a writer & broadcaster specialising in science, wildlife & rural affairs.

She lives in permanently muddy jeans on a smallholding in Wales.

5

SHORTLISTED BOOK

Time Song

by Julia Blackburn

Doggerland

Despite the recent shenanigans about our relationship with Europe, if you were to go back about 7000 years ago, you’d find that we were physically connected to the continent. This connection point was where the North Sea is now. We know that there were people and animals there because of the number of bones and other artefacts that keep being bought to the surface by trawlers. This land has a name now too, Doggerland.

Julia Blackburn seeks out objects that can speak across the bridge of time. Her curiosity takes her back and forth across this shallow sea and far back in time to the people that inhabited this sunken landscape. She sees footprints from humans that are fossilised in mud and silt, holds flint arrowheads that were last used a millennia ago, discovers the traces of plants that must have come across on the land bridge and even gets to see those that have been preserved in the acid waters of the bogs that surround the North Sea. Entwined with the history and archaeology is her very own personal journey as she reminisces about her late husband, the artist Herman Makkink.

She is such an evocative and beautiful writer and this has an intensity that makes you think of elements of it long after you have set it aside.

6

© Maurice Boyer

Julia Blackburn has written nine books of non-fiction, a family memoir, The Three of Us, which won the 2009 J.R. Ackerley Award, and two novels, The Book of Colour and The Leper’s Companions, both of which were shortlisted for the Orange Prize.

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

TRAWLING FOR TRUTH

“Time Song quietly dazzles, bringing the lost landscape of Doggerland to life through poetry, though research and through an almost clairvoyant ability to find the telling story.”

- Prize Judging Panel

Doggerland is the huge and fertile ancient country that once connected the east coast of England to Europe, now submerged under the North Sea. Told through stories and songs, Time Song is a spellbinding journey in search of this lost land, by one of Britain’s most original writers. #FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

7

SHORTLISTED BOOK

Wilding by Isabella Tree

The land at Knepp in West Sussex had been farmed for generations but had reached the point where the farm was unviable as a business. Not sure what to do with the land, Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell made the decision to let nature take over again.

Fences were taken up and they selected some hardy breeds of pigs, Exmoor ponies and cattle to wander freely around the 3,500 acres site.

regain a wilder country. We can make some attempt to reverse the devastating trend and, whilst farms might not be able to implement all of what they have done, even adopting some of these changes will have a marked improvement to our natural world.

Wildlife under the modern capitalist economies is taking an absolute pounding. A recent report says that we have lost 60% of our global wildlife and figures in the UK show this too; we are ranked 29th in the world for biodiversity loss: 56% of species are in decline and 15% are threatened with extinction. The species that we used to regularly see and hear are no longer around; when did you last hear a cuckoo?

Slowly the recovery began on their land. Species that had plummeted in the weald, begun to return. They were suddenly one of the top sites in the country for creatures like purple emperor butterflies and turtle doves.

With an abundance of invertebrates come predators and this rippled up until they realised that the peregrine falcons were back.

This inspirational book shows what can be achieved in just a decade; how we can 8

Isabella Tree is an awardwinning author, travel writer, and owner of the Knepp Wildland Project in West Sussex, together with her husband the conservationist Charlie Burrell. She is the author of several books, including The Living Goddess and The Bird Man.

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the ‘Knepp experiment’, a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to create new habitats for wildlife.

Part gripping memoir, part fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope.

“Wilding is an inspirational book. The idea of letting nature take over was a controversial one. But very brave. Wildlife being allowed to be wild.”

- Prize Judging Panel

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

9

The 2019 Judging Panel Julia Bradbury Credited with revamping Sunday night prime-time television and dubbed “Lady of the Lakes”, Julia Bradbury is one of the small screen’s most popular and versatile presenters. Although having presented many genres of programming, she is best known for her love of travel and the outdoors.

Katie Bond Katie Bond is publisher at the National Trust and previously worked at Bloomsbury Publishers with authors including J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood and Khaled Hosseini. She lives in London, often escapes to the Yorkshire Dales and is an avid reader and walker.

© Robin Sinha

David Lindo David Lindo is The Urban Birder - broadcaster, writer, speaker and tour leader. His mission is to engage city folk around the world with the environment through the medium of birds. He has written countless articles on urban birds, urban conservation and wildlife in general.

Anna Arnell Anna Arnell (née Carpen) is a writer and Creative Partner of And Rising, the first B-corp advertising agency in the UK. She has worked on some of the biggest advertising campaigns for The National Trust. In the ten years she has worked in the industry she has written over 100 ads.

John Mitchinson John is a writer and publisher and the co-founder of Unbound, the award-winning crowdfunding platform for books. He was previously Director of Research for the BBC TV show QI and co-wrote the bestselling series of QI books. He is co-host of the book podcast Backlisted and a Vice-President of the Hay Festival.

Clement Knox Clement Knox is a non-fiction category manager at Waterstones responsible for buying a dozen non-fiction genres including nature writing.

10

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

SEARCHING FOR ADVENTURE Discover A. Wainwright’s definitive walking guides to the Lake District fells, now in two stunning editions

A. Wainwright’s definitive walking guides to the Lake District fells are available in two stunning editions, complete with hand-drawn maps, ascent diagrams, ridge routes and summit views.

The portable Walkers Editions have been comprehensively revised and updated throughout, and the giftable Readers Editions are faithfully reproduced from A. Wainwright’s original manuscript pages.

Both editions of the Wainwright guides are available to buy now from all good book retailers and online.

11

SHORTLISTED BOOK

Our Place

by Mark Cocker

Britain has always liked to think of itself as a nation of animal lovers.

However, the reality is that our wildlife is suffering; species are going extinct, the whole ecosystem from the bottom up is reaching a critical tipping point from which we may never return. The numbers are shocking: in the past 50 years, we have lost 50% of our biodiversity. That is in the past 50 years, not since the industrial revolution. Just in the case of farmland birds, there are 44 million less than there were in 1970.

We only have 1% of our wildflower meadows left now.

So how did we reach the point where green concerns are on the rise just as the creatures people are beginning to care about fall off a metaphorical cliff?

In this radical text, Cocker takes a long hard look at how we have got to this moment, the causes, the people and systems to blame and boy, he does not hold back. Whilst this is an intense polemic, he still manages to be lyrical, you will be delighted by the writing whilst seething reading about the things that have happened. There are around 8 million of us in the RSPB, National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts, but only a handful are prepared to rattle the doors of the politicians and ask them some very difficult questions. This is a book to encourage more rattling.

12

“This important work is a call for a quiet but urgent revolution to ensure the survival of Britain’s endangered wildlife.”

- Prize Judging Panel

Mark Cocker is an author, naturalist and environmental activist whose eleven books include works of biography, history, literary criticism and memoir.

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

A RALLYING CRY

Our Place is a radical examination of Britain's relationship with the land, by one of our greatest nature writers. It asks: why do the British seem to love their countryside, yet live amid one of the most denatured landscapes on Earth?

Provocative and original, Our Place tackles some of the central issues of our time.

13

SHORTLISTED BOOK

Underland

by Robert Macfarlane People have been entering caves since time immemorial and they reveal art that is millennia old. Each cave Robert Macfarlane enters challenges his perception of the underground landscape, as he descends vertically in almost pitch back, wading through underground rivers and discovering chambers with dunes of black sand. He sees first-hand how the same geological forces transform the Underland.

Macfarlane enters the catacombs of Paris where his guide knows the numerous passages so well that she doesn’t need a map. He ventures deep underground in Finland visiting a nuclear waste site. Here, they are burying copper and steel tube holding waste uranium, that will have to be buried for thousands of years and sealed behind a million tonnes of rock.

In Greenland, he climbs mountains and abseils down a moraine in a glacier.

Secrets from London are revealed

by Bradley Garret from the London Consolidation Crew as they head to places that they really shouldn’t be going….

This is a book about the stories of places that never see the sun, but as with all of Macfarlane’s books, there is a wider message of the damage that we are doing to this, our only planet.

Macfarlane has a way with words that digs deep to see our past and glimpse our future.

14

©Bryan Appleyard

Robert Macfarlane is the author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and The Lost Words, co-created with Jackie Morris. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and writes on environmentalism, literature and travel for publications including the Guardian, The Sunday Times and The New York Times. www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

INTO THE ABYSS “This not only makes you want to take to the outdoors, but it makes you want to explore a different type of nature.

A darker side of nature.�

- Prize Judging Panel

In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes a dazzling journey into the concealed geographies of the ground beneath our feet - the hidden regions beneath the visible surfaces of the world. From the vast below-ground mycelial networks by which trees communicate, to the ice-blue depths of glacial moulins, and from North Yorkshire to the Lofoten Islands, he traces an uncharted, deep-time voyage. #FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

15

OOicial filming partner for Official Filming Partner

16

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

A. Wainwright’s definitive guidebooks to walking in

THE LAKE DISTRICT

A. Wainwright’s definitive walking guides to the Lake District fells are available in two stunning editions, complete with hand-drawn maps, ascent diagrams, ridge routes and summit views. The portable Walkers Editions have been comprehensively revised and updated throughout, and the giftable Readers Editions are faithfully reproduced from A. Wainwright’s original manuscript pages. #FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW FROM ALL GOOD BOOK RETAILERS AND ONLINE

17

SHORTLISTED BOOK

SHELTER IN THE TREES Out of the Woods by Luke Turner He was beginning to think that his relationship with Alice was the one but all too soon it unravelled. Once alone, unwanted thoughts that had affected him since childhood began to return; depression, guilt, religious confusion and the conflicts of his bisexuality. This time he had a place of refuge where he could go, Epping Forest. It was a place that would draw him back time after time.

Epping Forest is a place of secrets.

However, rather than finding demons in the woods, Turner used his time spent in the natural world to exorcise his own and it gives him the inspiration to begin to investigate a family secret from a few generations ago.

The ancient timbers of Greensted know no hypocrisy or bigotry, but are prayers carved from nature, as sacred as hymns.

Turner writes with a wonderful eye for detail and this is a very raw, honest and open memoir. He asks searching questions of himself about his sexuality and how society treats those that do not fit conventional stereotypes. But the understorey of his memoir is the forest, how it lifts his mood when he visits, and the deep attachment he forms with the place.

18

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

“Out of the Woods gives us a glimpse of the future of nature writing: brave and uncompromising, capable of finding beauty in the darkest places.”

Epping Forest, London

- Prize Judging Panel

After the disintegration of the most significant relationship of his life, Luke Turner seeks refuge from his demons among the trees of London’s Epping Forest. Dazzling, devastating and highly original, this memoir is about the irresistible yet double-edged potency of the forest, and the possibility of learning to find peace in the grey areas of life.

Luke Turner is a writer, editor and curator based in London. He co-founded and edits the influential online music publication The Quietus and regularly writes on music, culture and place for a variety of magazines, websites and broadcasters. Out of the Woods is his first book. #FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

© Eva Vermandel

19

SHORTLISTED BOOK

The Easternmost House

by Juliet Blaxland

Earth. She has a deep love of the coastal landscape she inhabits and her writing is evocative, whether she is writing about the roar of a storm or jugs of homemade Pimm’s.

On the very eastern coast of our country, erosion of the soft cliffs is happening at a dramatic rate.

The house on the edge of the cliff was demolished this week, which means we are now the house on the edge of the cliff.

Juliet Blaxland is one of those living on this fast-changing coastline. Way back in time there used to be a village where she lives. In 1666 the church succumbed to the waves. The battle between sea and land has continued over the centuries. Back in June 2015, her house was 50 paces from the cliff edge. Now, it’s half that and getting closer year on year. One day their home will have to be demolished, they just don’t know when that day will be.

However, Blaxland is quite philosophical about the whole thing. It is not just a book about the frightening rate of erosion, but about living a life in a place that she loves. She moves from wider contemplations on the rewilding of landscapes that mankind has realised that they cannot control to tiny details of day to day life. She has come to understand that we are momentary beings on a transient planet; our three score and ten on this rock are nothing when compared to the lifetime of the

20

They still live there and will do until the bitter end.

Juliet is an architect, writer, cartoonist and illustrator.

She grew up in a remote part of Suffolk and now lives on the cliff edge of the easternmost part of England in a house known as the Easternmost House.

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

“This is not just a submissive coastline that stays the same – it changes with weather, seasons, temperature. It highlights that human relationship with nature is a reactive one.”

- Prize Judging Panel

Juliet Blaxland lives on a crumbling cliff top on the east coast of Suffolk. The Easternmost House will soon crumble into the sea. This book describes a year living on the edge: a meditation on nature, on coastal erosion, on impermanence and on the changing seasons.

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

21

2019 Longlisted Books

The 2019 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize has championed a truly astounding collection of books. The 2019 longlist was announced on the 5th of June on World Environment Day in solidarity with the message at the core of each organisation and showcased an incredible breadth of UK nature writing.

Jane King from The Wainwright Society commented on the longlist “The longlist this year is even stronger and more varied than before”. It was no easy feat for the esteemed judges to whittle this list down to the shortlist. Whilst the following titles may not have reached the shortlist stage, they are essential reading for any nature lover.

Central to a number of the longlisted books is an investigation of our place within both wild and urban landscapes and the liminal places in between.

From Bob Gilbert’s Ghost Trees which chronicles the trees which have shaped London, to Marc Hamer’s insights into his life as a traditional mole-catcher and why he gave it up in How To Catch A Mole and Damian Le Bas’ journey through Gypsy Britain in The Stopping Places; each author interrogates our role and experiences within shifting

22

environments. From books that examine the detrimental effect we have on nature such as Tim Dee’s Landfill which confronts our waste-making species to the joy and peace that can be found in the natural world in the moving Wild Woman Swimming and formally inventive novels such as Lanny; there is something to tempt every booklover.

In the words of Wainwright Beer, whatever personal mountain you’re facing, hurl yourself at it in true Wainwright style, and this summer, why not make your mountain one of these fantastic books! Partake in the Wainwright Challenge and read each of the books in our longlist and take an eye-opening journey through nature, from landfills to London, reclaimed farmland to forests, from rivers to the sea and everywhere in between. Let the outside in. #WainwrightChallenge

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

23

© Derry Brabbs

The Wainwright Society was formed in 2002 and now has over 2000 family members.

The Society promotes Alfred Wainwright’s vision of introducing a wider audience to fellwalking and caring for the hills.

A Pennine Journey is an important book republished by the Society in June 2019. It lay unpublished for 48 years and is considered by some to be AW’s finest work Originally written in 1938 after a walking holiday in the Pennines from Settle to Hadrian’s Wall, A Pennine Journey was finally published in 1986.

The book is an account of Wainwright’s journey in the style of a travelogue, recalling the people he had met along the way and expounding his philosophy and beliefs on a variety of subjects.

This new edition includes material produced by Wainwright at the time, including the postcards he sent to a friend, photographs, advertising material and Wainwright’s own review of the book.

24

This once out-of-print book is now available from www.wainwright.org.uk/ merchandise.html

A PENNINE JOURN The Story of a Long

Walk in 1938

EY

A. Wainwright

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize www.wainwright.org.uk

AN AMAZING DAY AWAITS YOU!

TO COMING E CASTL HOWARD FOR THE E FIRST TIM! IN 2019

JOIN THE PRESENTERS*...

MATT BAKER • JOHN CRAVEN • ELLIE HARRISON • TOM HEAP ADAM HENSON • ANITA RANI • CHARLOTTE SMITH • STEVE BROWN PLUS MANY MORE SPECIAL GUESTS

SO MUCH TO SEE, EXPERIENCE & BUY EXCITING ARENA SHOWS • FANTASTIC FAMILY FUN • AMAZING BIRDS & BEASTS • DELICIOUS FOOD & DRINK OUTDOOR ACTION • TALKS, DEBATES & PERFORMANCES • UNBEATABLE COUNTRY SHOPPING • OVER 400 EXHIBITORS * Check the website for daily appearance schedules

BOOK YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE & SAVE OR

COUNTRYFILELIVE.COM

0844 2097324

**Call charges apply. Consult your telephone provider for details. Ticket price plus booking and transaction fees.

#FindYourMountain BBC logo© 1996. Countryfile Live logo© BBC 2015

#LetTheOutsideIn

**

25

2018 WINNER Chair of judges Julia Bradbury commented “I am delighted that The Seabird’s Cry has won the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2018; this outstanding book shows you the world through the eyes and lives of ten seabirds. Adam’s telling of the captivating stories and lives of these birds alongside insightful research is magnetic. You’ll wail aloud as you learn about their plummeting numbers and the wider implications of this tragedy.”

The Seabird’s Cry by Adam Nicolson

The judges felt this was a truly worthy winner – a passionate book which celebrates the natural world in a way that will enthuse and delight nature lovers and book lovers alike. The aim of this prize is to enthuse and encourage people to get out in nature and appreciate it. The Seabird’s Cry is a unique plea that demonstrates the urgent need for us all to lessen the impact of human life on the natural world.

The Seabird’s Cry is a celebration of the wonders of seabirds, the only creatures at home in the air, on land and on the sea, but it also carries a stark warning about the rapid decline in seabird numbers.

With numbers dropping by two thirds since the 1950s, Adam Nicolson suggests that the extinction of some species of seabirds within this century could be a very real possibility.

Adam Nicolson is a prize-winning writer of many books on history, nature and the countryside and has presented many television series. In The Seabird’s Cry, a chapter is dedicated to ten different birds, each beautifully illustrated by Kate Boxer.

Adam travels their ocean paths, fusing traditional knowledge with all that modern science has come to know about them: the way their bodies work, their dazzling navigational expertise, their ability to smell their way to fish or home, to understand the workings of the winds in which they live. He follows the seabirds to the coasts and islands of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and the Americas.

26

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize

With Thanks Many thanks to our sponsors & partners

Additional thanks to: - Our fantastic 2019 Judging Panel - Paul Cheney for his work reviewing the 2019 shortlist. To read more reviews by Paul, head to his blog halfmanhalfbook.co.uk

Prize powered by

Published by NB Magazine

www.agile-ideas.com 01225 302266

This has been produced in partnership with NB, the booklovers magazine; here to help you take note of the very best books. With content written by magazine contributor, Paul Cheney.

To read similar editorial and more of Paul’s reviews please head to nbmagazine.co.uk

#FindYourMountain

#LetTheOutsideIn

27

28

www.wainwrightprize.com

@wainwrightprize