Birds and People

Here's a clip from Radio 4, featuring Mark Cocker talking about Birds and People, his new book with top wildlife photographer David Tipling.

Like Birds Britannica before it (a book I've raved about on here), it looks at birds in the context of their relationship to us, and their cultural significance. It's taken the best part of a decade to put together, and I was lucky enough to be a travelling companion of Mark (in Papua New Guinea) and David (in the Philippines) when they were researching it and collecting the raw material, so I've particularly enjoyed the section on birds-of-paradise, for example.

But anyway, have a listen, then put the book on your to-buy list. You won't regret it.

Birds and People

I'll give you fair warning - I'm likely to blog about this book a lot over the next year or so. It arrived in the office on Friday and I can honestly say no review copy's ever been so eagerly awaited. Eight years of research and writing have gone into it, and at first glance it's truly extraordinary.

Mark Cocker's Birds Britannica has long been a favourite of mine, and here he does for the birds of the world what he previously did for the species of these islands. Which is to say, considers them in the round, and especially in terms of their interaction with humans. Folklore, myth, literature, science, anthropology and birdwatching mingle in these pages, and he continues to manage the difficult balancing act between getting over a wealth of hard information, and maintaining great readability.

This time, there's the added bonus of David Tipling's superb photography - it makes it a book that you can't stop flicking through every time you've got a spare moment.

Anyway, I'll be returning to the subject soon, but keep an eye out - it's released this summer.