A beautifully lyrical collection of essays on the natural world in Britain by the Guardian's country diary writer Paul Evans. With a title taken from the 1940 Batsford book, this is nature writing for the modern reader. It is a book both for those that live in the country and those that don't, but experience nature every day through brownfield edge lands, transport corridors, urban greenspace, industrialised agriculture and fragments of ancient countryside.

Evans weaves historical, cultural and literary references into his writing, ranging from TS Eliot to Bridget Riley, from Hieronymus Bosch to Napoleon.