“What does the lizard know? Imagine knowing that these things might happen, and letting go, closing one’s eyes, dozing off, leaving everything to hazard.”
Cold Blood by Richard Kerridge
Cold Blood is a book with a warm heart. Blending recollections of a lifetime’s obsession with reptiles and reflections on their place in today’s world, Richard Kerridge makes an original and likeable contribution to the seemingly ever-expanding (and increasingly hard to define) nature writing genre. At heart, conservation is about the meeting point between the needs of what Kerridge affectionately refers to throughout as ‘wild nature’ and the needs of those in human society who are besotted with it. As such, I’d go so far as to call this essential reading for those who want to understand contemporary nature conservation, especially in the UK.
Chris Foster 