The weekend is a time for treats, and today is #NationalPotatoChipDay!

Today's new book highlights ✨

Such a Strange Little Girl by #JABaker
Laughter & Love in Nettleford-on-the-Wold by #SarahHope
( #EscapetoNettlefordontheWold Series)
Tamed by Flint by #ZapphireZucca
( #GrizzlyHollowMountainMan Series)

Read more at our 🔗 link in the comments.
#newbooks #newreleases 📚 #bookstodon

@markarayner Hey remember I sent you a passage of astonishingly good prose from a book and you like it but thought it needed cut and I disagreed? I think I forgot to mention that it wasn’t from a novel, but a nature book — the purpose of which was to describe the extreme beauty of nature in as vivid detail as possible.

If it had been a novel, I agree it would be too much! Be like something from a John Irving joint.
The Peregrine https://a.co/d/b9zCPcX #peregrine #jabaker

“Suddenly he was flying, starlings around him, rising from the field and mounting over the river. His wings flickered high, with a lithe and vigorous slash, looking supple and many-jointed. Darting and shrugging, he shook starlings from his shoulders, like a dog shaking spray from his body.”

— J. A. Baker, *The Peregrine*

#JABaker #ThePeregrine #Peregrines #Birds #NatureWriting #Essex #England #Hawks

“The field was silent, misty, furtive with movement. A cold wind layered the sky with cloud. Sparrows pattered into dry-leaved hedges, rustling through the leaves like rain. Blackbirds scolded. Jackdaws and crows peered down from trees. I knew the peregrine was in this field, but I could not find him.“

— J. A. Baker, *The Peregrine*

#JABaker #ThePeregrine #Peregrines #Birds #NatureWriting #Essex #England #Hawks

“Craving into flight”…J.A. Baker bending language in The Peregrine. #newyorkreviewbooks #jabaker #literature

More breathtaking #NatureWriting from #JABaker in #ThePeregrine

“Screaming gulls corkscrewing high under cloud. Islands blazing with birds. A peregrine rising and falling. Godwits ricocheting across water, tumbling, towering. A peregrine, following, swooping, clutching. Godwit and peregrine darting, dodging; stitching land and water with flickering shuttle. Godwit climbing, dwindling, tiny, gone: peregrine, diving, perching, panting, beaten.”

#7books to know me

Stranger in a Strange Land - #RobertAHeinlein
Catching the Big Fish - #DavidLynch
Lord of the Rings - #JRRTolkien
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - #KenzaburoOe
The Peregrine - #JABaker
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - #KenKesey
Marabou Stork Nightmares - #IrvineWelsh

A piece of ecstatic descriptive #NatureWriting to experience over and over again—

“Bar-tailed godwits flying with curlew, with knot, with plover; seldom alone, seldom settling; snuffling eccentricities; long-nosed, loud-calling sea-rejoicers; their call a snorting, sneezing, mewing, spitting bark. Their thin upcurved bills turn, their heads turn, their shoulders and whole bodies turn, their wings waggle. They flourish their rococo flight above the surging water.”
#JABaker #ThePeregrine #birds

“One of those rare autumn days, calm under high cloud, mild, with patches of distant sunlight circling round and rafters of blue sky crumbling into mist… High tide was at three o’clock, lifting along the southern shore of the estuary… White glinting water welling in, mouthing the stones of the sea-wall. Moored boats pecking at the water. Dark red glasswort shining like drowned blood.”
— J. A. Baker, *The Peregrine*
#NatureWriting #Estuary #JABaker #ThePeregrine #England #Essex
“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.”
—J A Baker, *The Peregrine*
#jabaker #theperegrine #trueseeing #perception #naturewriting