Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2014
368 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Field Notes From a Hidden City is set against the background of the austere, grey and beautiful northeast Scottish city of Aberdeen. In it, Esther Woolfson examines the elements—geographic, atmospheric and environmental—which bring diverse life forms to live in close proximity in cities. Using the circumstances of her own life, house, garden and city, she writes of the animals who live among us: the birds—gulls, starlings, pigeons, sparrows and others—the rats and squirrels, the cetaceans, the spiders and the insects.
In beautiful, absorbing prose, Woolfson describes the seasons, the streets and the quiet places of her city over the course of a year, which begins with the exceptional cold and snow of 2010. Influenced by her own long experience of corvids, she considers prevailing attitudes towards the natural world, urban and non-urban wildlife, the values we place on the lives of individual species and the ways in which man and creature live together in cities.
"Starred Review. Woolfson is an elegant, precise writer, and this transcendent memoir conveys exquisitely the vibrant world she inhabits." - Kirkus Reviews
"Through richly crafted prose she depicts the city and its inhabitants, both human and non-human . . Woolfson's careful observations bring to our attention elements of the natural world often taken for granted." - Publishers Weekly
"Always tolerant and respectful, Woolfson offers both philosophical and scientific arguments for the conservation of all city life." - Booklist
This information about Field Notes from a Hidden City was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Esther Woolfson was brought up in Glasgow and studied Chinese at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Edinburgh University. Her critically acclaimed short stories have appeared in many anthologies including 'New Writing Scotland' and several volumes of 'Scottish Short Stories' and have been read on Radio 4. Her short story 'Eggshells' won a V.S. Pritchett award in 2014.
Esther took part in an Artists' Residency at Aberdeen University's Centre for Environmental Sustainability. She gave a paper on the relationship between the arts and science, in which she examined the breaking-down of the traditional separation between the disciplines. She was Writer in Residence at Kielder as part of the Hexham Book Festival in 2012.
Her book on natural history, Corvus—A Life With Birds, was ...
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
