Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 144
A Nature Book Reader
CHRIS YATES
Chris Yates grew up surrounded by good countryside and good water
The Story of my Heart by Richard Jefferies
Good writing is like good
music; very often you can
only truly appreciate the
content after several revisits.
Sometimes, as with music,
you can hardly understand
it at all first time around, but
patient re-reading gradually
teases out the subtle shadings
of meaning and poetry until
the complete picture becomes
clear. I have to remind myself
of this truth every time I read
a new book because, if I’m
enjoying it, I always think it
must be the best book ever
written and, if I’m not, then I
just want to toss it on the floor.
Of the many books in
my collection the three
main categories are fishing,
contemporary poetry and
country, and my favourites
are those volumes that have
lived with me for several
years – long enough to be
able to hear their own unique
144
music just by holding them
in my hands, long enough to
know that there will always
be something new to discover
within their pages. However, I
have dozens of favourites and
it’s very hard to reduce them
to just a few special titles. For
instance, I have just re-read
and, once more, really enjoyed
Roger Deakin’s Notes from
Walnut Tree Farm, but I can’t
yet honestly tell whether I rate
it higher than T.H. White’s
England Have My Bones,
which I’m re-reading at the
present moment. Both books
offer beautifully written
observations of the British
landscape, yet I don’t think
either would quite make it
onto the ‘desert island list’
which, I suppose, can’t contain
more than eight titles. But
that is five too many for this
CBTR list, making the task of
choosing my favourites even
