The animal kingdom came to my rescue. It always has done. I suspect it always will. It rescued me at Sunnyhill Primary School, it rescued me in my adolescence, it has rescued me over and over again throughout my adult life." In My Natural History Simon Barnes, like a modern-day Gerald Durrell, weaves together the story of his life via the animals and the natural encounters that have shaped it. From the greater horseshoe bat that transported Barnes from the dull classrooms of his youth, to the great whale which marked the moment he knew he was going to be a writer, from Himalayan Kingfishers in India, to majestic lions in the Luangwa valley, each animal represents a piece in the puzzle of Barnes's life. With its humour and poetry, every page fizzing with Barnes's infectious enthusiasm, My Natural History cannot fail to delight and enthrall any lover of the wild world.
My Natural History: The Animal Kingdom and How It Shaped Me
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My Natural History fizzes with verve, romance and delight - and more epiphanies than could reasonably be expected in one lifetime.A" The Times Barnes is a committed naturalist, with a wonderful knowledge of wildlife and a gift for bringing his enthusiasm to life - He has a deft turn of phrase and a lyrical style - A" Rosie Boycott Reading Barnes's prose is a bit like peeling a rather elegant onion, as he gradually reveals secrets about his life through the medium of the natural world. My Natural History will delight Barnes' loyal readers and win him new ones..A" BBC Wildlife Magazine Few memoirs have been moulded around so inviting a conceit as this. Barnes writing is lovely and his animals are nicely observed, yet this is a book whose appeal derives as much from the author's generous spirit as the story he is telling. A" TLS
About the Author
Simon Barnes is the multi-award-winning chief sportswriter for the Times. He is also a novelist, nature writer and horseman, and the author of a dozen books, including the bestselling How to be a Bad Birdwatcher and The Meaning of Sport (Short Books). He lives in Suffolk with his family.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By read.heard.seen.
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoy Barnes's writing- his books and columns on sport and wildlife. And it was after reading a touching chapter (The Tiger) from this book in The Times that I bought it.
I opened the amazon pack and was immediately struck by the charming book cover design. It's so reminiscent of the many animal book cover illustrations of my childhood. When Barnes starts the first chapter at his primary school I was already there.
Each chapter describes a specific natural encounter that has illuminated, influenced or enriched his life.
From schooldays and university, through good and bad times at work, relationships, family and fatherhood. Barnes writes with enthusiasm and romance of the wonder, awe and life changing impact nature has had on him.
From the Greater horseshoe bat, via the grey whale and Morelet's crocodile, to the Barn Owl and all the 20 chapters in between we get to read how wildlife has left an indelible stamp on his life.
And there are moments of great humour and warmth here too- you soon appreciate why only Barnes could have spotted a crested pendola at a significant moment in a West Indies test!
I opened the amazon pack and was immediately struck by the charming book cover design. It's so reminiscent of the many animal book cover illustrations of my childhood. When Barnes starts the first chapter at his primary school I was already there.
Each chapter describes a specific natural encounter that has illuminated, influenced or enriched his life.
From schooldays and university, through good and bad times at work, relationships, family and fatherhood. Barnes writes with enthusiasm and romance of the wonder, awe and life changing impact nature has had on him.
From the Greater horseshoe bat, via the grey whale and Morelet's crocodile, to the Barn Owl and all the 20 chapters in between we get to read how wildlife has left an indelible stamp on his life.
And there are moments of great humour and warmth here too- you soon appreciate why only Barnes could have spotted a crested pendola at a significant moment in a West Indies test!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By SCM
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
This is an honest and often surprisingly personal book that charts the connection, disconnection and reconnection of Simon Barnes with the natural world. In 23 chapters, each one nominally about a different animal (plants clearly don't cut the mustard here!) the author goes to school, university, Asia, Africa, Suffolk and marries. He has two children. He sees whales, birds at the cricket, badgers feasting on nuts, barn owls from his desk and rabbits by the railway. He sees animals he thought he never would and finds ones he did not know were there.
The sense of wonder conveyed by this book is as clear as the connection the author feels with the wild. The chapters develop a familiar rhythm, and most end in an effort to provide an insight into why we should be connected with nature. But the book also contains a number of surprises. The chapter on Rabbits (possibly appropriately!) is one of the best pieces I have read in a very long time on the adventure that is parenthood.
However, I am not sure that this is the book I would recommend to readers who have not read any of Simon Barnes' work before. The subtitle of the book is "The animal kingdom and how it shaped me", and I think that the last word is important here. This is very clearly a book about Simon Barnes. I feel that this really is a "making of" book - not just the making of Barnes himself as the title would suggest, but also his thinking on the natural world and, possibly above all else, of his writing as well. To read this book without first having read some of his other works would seem to be approaching things in the wrong order - meeting the man before you have met his work. I acknowledge that I could be wrong, but I found the "back story" elements about his growing relationship with Africa or Minesmere engaging at least partly because I already knew the "front story" from his other works. I am not sure that this book would have worked as well as it did for me without this kind of prior knowledge.
Don't get me wrong, this is a good book, with an important central message. But I think Barnes has made the points he makes better elsewhere (How to Be Wild).
If you enjoy high quality writing on the natural world, buy this book. But if you want to get the most out of it you may want to read some of the authors other work before hand.
The sense of wonder conveyed by this book is as clear as the connection the author feels with the wild. The chapters develop a familiar rhythm, and most end in an effort to provide an insight into why we should be connected with nature. But the book also contains a number of surprises. The chapter on Rabbits (possibly appropriately!) is one of the best pieces I have read in a very long time on the adventure that is parenthood.
However, I am not sure that this is the book I would recommend to readers who have not read any of Simon Barnes' work before. The subtitle of the book is "The animal kingdom and how it shaped me", and I think that the last word is important here. This is very clearly a book about Simon Barnes. I feel that this really is a "making of" book - not just the making of Barnes himself as the title would suggest, but also his thinking on the natural world and, possibly above all else, of his writing as well. To read this book without first having read some of his other works would seem to be approaching things in the wrong order - meeting the man before you have met his work. I acknowledge that I could be wrong, but I found the "back story" elements about his growing relationship with Africa or Minesmere engaging at least partly because I already knew the "front story" from his other works. I am not sure that this book would have worked as well as it did for me without this kind of prior knowledge.
Don't get me wrong, this is a good book, with an important central message. But I think Barnes has made the points he makes better elsewhere (How to Be Wild).
If you enjoy high quality writing on the natural world, buy this book. But if you want to get the most out of it you may want to read some of the authors other work before hand.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By kcm
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Barnes is the award-winning Chief Sports Writer for the Times as well as a great wildlife enthusiast and ornithologist who has travelled the world in search of both sport and wildlife. He is erudite, as befits one who is so hugely well read, and a fan of Anthony Powell's "Dance", often working Powellian references into his sports writing.
My Natural History is written in Barnes's light, forthright and eminently readable style. In 23 short chapters it tells the stories of significant moments in Barnes's fifty-odd years in all of which he finds a wildlife connexion - many indeed being centred around wildlife. The tales vary from great achievements (mostly of the wildwood; always understated), through great loves to the occasional disturbing poignancy. It is short, light, bedtime reading, and no worse for that for it could easily be sub-titled "How to be a Success without any Effort while Remaining Interesting and Human".
My Natural History is written in Barnes's light, forthright and eminently readable style. In 23 short chapters it tells the stories of significant moments in Barnes's fifty-odd years in all of which he finds a wildlife connexion - many indeed being centred around wildlife. The tales vary from great achievements (mostly of the wildwood; always understated), through great loves to the occasional disturbing poignancy. It is short, light, bedtime reading, and no worse for that for it could easily be sub-titled "How to be a Success without any Effort while Remaining Interesting and Human".
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