‘Home Country is a memoir told on ridgeway and in beechwood, from the childhood dens built in the grounds of a derelict mansion to the rediscovery of Richard Mabey’s roots in the Chilterns.
The Chilterns: that great chalk escarpment of southern England, studded with beechwood, intercut with motorways and the sprawling suburbs of London. This is where Richard Mabey grew up and spent most of his adult life. It was his laboratory, a place that has left an indelible mark on his writing. But how did this landscape shape Britain’s most popular nature writer? How has it influenced his understanding of the natural world? Home Country is a journey defined by its proximity to nature. It is also a vision that does not suppose humans are masters, or even stewards of nature, but partners in a colourful and rowdy striving for life.’ – Little Toller
‘Richard Mabey is a natural historian whose special gift is to observe the outward and visible world in such a way as to illuminate the inward and invisible one.’ Andrew Motion
