Hidden Nature

Thoughtful and heartbreakingly honest ...Beautiful. * Press Association * Hidden Nature is one of the most thrilling things I've read in a long time. * Waterways World * Gentle, brave and acutely observant * Woman's Weekly * She writes wonderfully about the species that have carved out a place for themselves amid the discarded shopping trolleys, condom packets and industrial waste * Guardian * This candid book is as much about mapping the heart as it is about mapping the paths of waterways. Lovely. * Simple Things * In the beautiful memoir Hidden Nature: A Voyage of Discovery, TV gardener Alys Fowler steers a barge around Birmingham's waterways, noting the plants and realising, after 12 years as wife and carer to her husband, that she has fallen in loe=ve with a woman. * Good Housekeeping * I felt as if I'd paddled into a new country. The gardening author and Guardian columnist with a distinctive memoir in which she forsakes her garden and takes to paddling Birmingham's little-used canal network in an inflatable kayak. The time and space she allows herself for nature observation--kingfishers, waterlilies, pikes, freshwater mussels and blackberries are all beautifully reflected on--is mirrored by her exploration of her internal self, particularly in the light of leaving her marriage and coming out as gay. An enchanting book which somehow manages to be both gutsy and delightfully soothing. * The Bookseller *