The Peregrine, J. A. Baker
The Peregrine, J. A. Baker
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The Peregrine

Author: J. A. Baker, Mark Cocker

Narrator: David Attenborough, Dugald Bruce-Lockhart

Unabridged: 8 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/21/2019

Synopsis

David Attenborough reads J. A. Baker’s extraordinary classic of British nature writing. The nation’s greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads J. A. Baker’s extraordinary classic of British nature writing, . J. A. Baker’s classic of British nature writing was first published in 1967. Greeted with acclaim, it went on to win the Duff Cooper Prize, the pre-eminent literary prize of the time. Luminaries such as Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez and Andrew Motion have cited it as one of the most important books in twentieth-century nature writing. Despite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles, is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J. A. Baker spent long winters looking and writing about the visitors from the uplands – peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Eleanor

THE HILL OF SUMMER I read "The Peregrine" a few weeks ago, and gave it five stars. I have now read Baker's other book, "The Hill of Summer", where he writes of observations over a six month period, gleaned from many years of returning to the same area and observing the wildlife there. Again, it was a......more

Goodreads review by Taka

Amazing-- This book contains not only The Peregrine but Baker's only other published book, The Hill of Summer, plus a chunk of his actual birdwatching diaries and an article he wrote in 1971. Though the writing is ethereally gorgeous throughout, I actually liked his less famous second work, The Hill......more

Goodreads review by Brian

I've read Peregrine 2ce and The Hill of Summer is at least as good. It is very much a book for slow and very focused reading. It gives the closest thing in print to the experience of physical exposure to different environments, at different periods of the year, and the living things within them. The......more

Goodreads review by James

This book has some of the most stunningly beautiful writing I have ever had the joy to experience. The Peregrine is certainly superior to The Hill of Summer but both are certainly worth reading and taking extensive notes in. The lyrical beauty of language is absolutely breathtaking. Every page feature......more

Quotes

‘A masterpiece of natural history writing. I would recommend to anybody who loves the English language, let alone birds of prey’ Monty Don, Financial Times ‘Passionately fierce but also wonderfully tender’ Andrew Motion ‘…an inspiring example to future writers, and a gift to lovers of nature.’ The Times Literary Supplement ‘… a literary masterpiece, one of the 20th century’s outstanding examples of nature writing.’ Independent ‘The Peregrine should be known as one of the finest works on nature ever written' BBC Wildlife ‘… some of the most marvellous prose of the twentieth century.’ Literary Review ‘A tour de force … what can I do except praise writing which involves all the senses? This book goes altogether outside the bird-book into literature.’ The Sunday Times ‘A rapt and remarkable book … his phrases have a magnesium-flare intensity.’ Observer ‘… what is certain is that The Peregrine is the most precise and poetic account of a bird – possibly of any non-human creature – ever written in English prose.’ Daily Telegraph ‘J. A. Baker's poetic prose has a hard intensity and an exquisite lyric grace that takes it far beyond the stereotypical stuff of larks ascending and questing voles. Cruelly beautiful and brutally exact, it sees the countryside anew to give us nature in the wild and in the raw.’ The Scotsman ‘Including original diaries from which The Peregrine was written and its companion volume, The Hill of Summer, this is a beautiful compendium of lyrical nature writing at its absolute best […]. For those with an interest in the Peregrine Falcon or classic natural history writing. ‘ Guardian

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