Richard Mabey is the father of modern nature writing in the UK. Since 1972 he has written some forty influential books, including the prize-winning Nature Cure, Gilbert White- a Biography, and Flora Britannica. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Vice-President of the Open Spaces Society. He spent the first half of his life amongst the Chiltern beechwoods, and now lives in Norfolk in a house surrounded by ash trees.
A brilliant, candid and heartfelt memoir...The account of how he broke free of depression, reshaped his life and reconnected with the wild becomes nothing short of a manifesto for living...Mabey's particular vision, informed by a lifetime's reading and observation, is ultimately optimistic. It is also what makes his voice so appealing amid all the froth and flam of the eco-debate -- Philip Marsden * Sunday Times * A book of which only he could have written a single page...marvellously observed, deeply felt from sentence to sentence. The writing is exquisite -- David Sexton, * Evening Standard * Subtle, devotional, poetic * Observer * Rich, invigorating and deeply restorative * Irish Times * Nature Cure moves between the nervous breakdown of an individual and the madness of the modern world with a prescience akin to that of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land -- Jonathan Bate * Guardian * Mabey is a radical, inheritor of an old English tradition...The core of the book is his exploration of his new landscape. It feels a privilege to share it, watching him unpick the layers of watery Norfolk, with dazzling skill and the warmest of hearts, as his troubled mind heals -- Michael McCarthy * Independent * Written in the radiant, tingle-making prose that has earned Mabey literary prizes and a multitude of fans... both a wake-up call and an example of how the love of nature can electrify and heal the imagination. -- Val Hennessy * Daily Mail * An inspiring book -- Nicholas Bagnall * Sunday Telegraph * Britain's greatest living nature writer * The Times *