'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMESA SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and BBC Radio 4
'Book of the Week' from 'indisputably one of the best nature-writers of his generation'
(Country Life) Written in diary format The Wood is the story of English woodlands as they
change with the seasons. Lyrical and informative steeped in poetry and folklore The Wood
inhabits the mind and touches the soul.For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed Cockshutt wood
a particular wood - three and half acres of mixed woodland in south west Herefordshire - that
stands as exemplar for all the small woods of England. John coppiced the trees and raised cows
and pigs who roamed free there. This is the diary of the last year by which time he had come
to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks and to know all the
animals that lived there - the fox the pheasants the wood mice the tawny owl - and where the
best bluebells grew. For many fauna and flora woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It
proves a sanctuary for John too. To read The Wood is to be amongst its trees as the seasons
change following an easy path until suddenly the view is broken by a screen of leaves or
your foot catches on a root or a bird startles overhead. This is a wood you will never want to
leave.
