Adventures of a Young Naturalist, by Sir David Attenborough

David Attenborough has long been an important figure in my life. I have greatly admired him as a pioneering TV presenter who has created some of the best documentary programmes in history. He helped shape television and has been one of the most influential figures in the – sadly futile, it seems – resistance to our human war on nature. His recent work, such as Planet Earth I and II and Blue Planet, is astonishing. It seems that every show he makes brings something utterly new to a cynical audience that thinks it has seen everything.

I didn’t know that I could be any more impressed by David Attenborough, but then I found out that he is an incredible writer. Adventures of a Young Naturalist is a collection of three journals he kept whilst making very early programmes for the BBC. Two of them see him visit South America and one recounts his travels through Indonesia in search of the Komodo Dragon. All of them see him attempting to capture animals for London Zoo and at the same time film them in their natural habitat for the BBC.

I was expecting interesting, occasionally witty descriptions of animals and plants, but while they do indeed appear in this book, most of it is made up of wonderful observations about the landscape and culture of these places, and his often hilarious interactions with the local people. Attenborough was travelling in the era of the adventurer, long before the tourist trod across these lands and ruined them. His journeys were difficult, often fraught with hardship. Yet unlike writers such as Paul Theroux (whom I’ve read often these past few years), Attenborough takes every set back with good humour. Indeed, this book is often laugh-out-loud funny. It is very much an adventure tale, filled with dangerous people and wild locations.

It is also a sad reminder of what we have lost. Attenborough wrote these stories only sixty years ago, yet they may as well have come from another planet. The jungles have been cut down, the animals brought to extinction, and the cultures all blended into nothingness as Facebook and Instagram make everyone look and act and think more and more like each other. This book is a beautiful paean to all we’ve lost.

David Attenborough really is a stunningly good writer, and this book at times made me jealous for my inability to describe places and people the way he does (although of course I always assumed he could do better at describing animals). He is a national treasure, a world treasure, and this book is one of the best things I have read in many years. I highly recommend it.

Cannibalism, by Bill Schutt

Bill Schutt’s forthcoming book, Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, is an informative and yet very light-hearted look at a fascinating subject. From the animal world to the human world, the author explores cannibalism in a non-judgmental way.

His premise is that cannibalism is perfectly reasonable from an evolutionary perspective, and the first half of the book is devoted to examining its prevalence in nature. As it turns out, cannibal animals are rather common. From parents eating their offspring to children eating their parents, and from an easy meal to mating benefits, cannibalism proves itself a useful tool throughout the animal kingdom.

Schutt consciously avoids sensationalism, preferring not to dwell upon famous cases of survival cannibalism, with the exception of the Donner party story, or cannibal killers who’ve been in the newspapers. As he rightly observes, there are plenty of gory books devoted to these people.

Instead, he talks about cannibalism in China and Papua New Guinea, where it never achieved the taboo status that it did in the West, at least until very recently. From Chinese children slicing off body parts to feed their parents to tribesmen eating their dead out of respect, it is a gory and yet fascinating part of the book.

Also of interest is the section on diseases spread through cannibalism, such as BSE in the UK and kuru in Papua New Guinea. And speaking of medical issues... did you know cannibalism was conducted in the name of medicine in Europe? 

Cannibalism comes out next year from Algonquin Books. Do yourself a favour and pre-order it.

Kingdom of Rarities, by Eric Dinerstein

This past week I've been reading the wonderful Kingdom of Rarities, by Eric Dinerstein on my Kindle. As soon as I read the synopsis I was excited to get into it, and it absolutely did not disappoint. Though it may sound a bit inaccessible, it is a thoroughly readable look at species on this earth which are rare, exploring why exactly they aren't in abundance.


Dinerstein has spent his life travelling the world, studying rare animals, and his knowledge and experience guide the reader from chapter to chapter. We are taken on a trip around the world, from South America to the Himalayas to Southeast Asia. His descriptions of his surroundings are vivid and impressive. I've travelled much of my adult life and I envy his ability to capture the magnificence of a locations.

Moreover, he knows a lot about biology and the workings of the world, and where he isn't the expert, he talks to those who are, and eloquently captures their perspectives of rarity. He describes jaguars and rhinos and other amazing creatures, explaining why these animals are rare and what exactly their place in nature is.

The book is filled with fascinating information. For example, in the UK there are 15 species of trees which occur naturally, while in the tropics - where rarities abound - there are 70,000 species. 1,000 of these exist on a single mountain, which harbors numerous rarities. Elsewhere, he describes the tropics canopies and methods scientists are using to explore the life they support. All of it is surprising and informative.

Sadly, though many of these animals exist naturally in small numbers, many of them are endangered due to human activity, and many naturally occurring rarities are pushed from rare to extinct due to our own growth. It is incredible sad how Dinerstein details amazing creatures all across the globe over his career, and yet whenever he draws close to the present day, he finds them extinct or nearly extinct. It is nothing short of heartbreaking just how much destruction we are doing to our planet, and much of it is irreversible.

He talks about the Vietnam War and its aftermath - the battle between conservation and development. Unsurprisingly, the conservationists are losing all the way. Where American bombs damaged populations of wildlife, now the population is hunting every remaining species and ensuring that natural diversity disappears.

Though Dinerstein often seems optimistic about conservation, it is hard to read this beautiful book without feeling the opposite. I've been lucky in my life to have come face to face with the most incredible animals, yet if I have children I'm sure I'll have to explain to them how so many of these animals are no longer with us.