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Book Reviews: Festival Special

Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm
Isabella Tree - Picador, £20

In 2000, Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree made the difficult decision to stop farming their 1000-hectare estate at Knepp, West Sussex. Intensively farmed since the second world war, their heavy Wealden clay had been forced to produce more and more grain and milk, and despite the subsidies, in a world of grain mountains and milk quotas, the land could not sustain a profit. So, they sold off all their livestock, machinery and equipment, rented out the farmland and, armed with a grant, set about restoring the Humphrey Repton designed parkland around the house. The following summer saw an explosion of flowers and invertebrates in the park, as the land was freed from the intensive management it had been subject to. With the addition of fallow deer to graze it, a wilder landscape came into view. With this in mind, they began to think about the fate of the rest of the estate.
Whereas most conservation focuses on a particular species or aims to simply recreate a slightly earlier and less destructive way of farming or landscape management, the Burrells have gone much further, to imagine a landscape before people. Inspired by the work of Dutch ecologist, Frans Vera and his Oostvardersplassen rewilding experiment, which uses grazing animals to open up the landscape and keeps human intervention to an absolute minimum they took the rest of the estate out of conventional farming, brought in longhorn cattle, red deer, Exmoor ponies and Tamworth pigs and left it to its own devices. 
What happened next surprised everyone. With astonishing speed and bucking the national trend for the catastrophic declines in many species of British wildlife, the Knepp estate is now home to turtle doves, nightingales, purple emperor butterflies, Bechstein’s bats and rocketing numbers of many other species. This is an exhilarating, enthralling and very well-written account of Knepp’s journey from intensive agriculture to dynamic wild habitat. Inspiring.
Isabella will be giving a talk on the wilding at Knepp on Monday 4th June at 2.30pm in the Festival Big Top

How Not to Be a Boy
Robert Webb - Canongate £8.99

As a small boy, Robert Webb, one half of That Mitchell and Webb Look, and star of Peepshow, was spindly, hated sport and was sentimental about animals. In rural Lincolnshire during the 70s and 80s, these were not things that boys were supposed to be. Instead, the rules were: don't cry; love sport; play rough; drink beer; don't talk about feelings. But, he wonders, who are the rules helping? Are they actually any use at all? This is the story of Robert’s life, from his relationship with his hyper masculine father, the death of his beloved mother when he was seventeen, his time at Cambridge, to his behaviour towards women, as he tried to fit the template of how to be a man laid down by his father, viewed through the prism of what society asks of, and deems acceptable for men to be, and the impact this has on both sexes.
Moving, important, and of course, very funny.
Robert will be talking about How Not to Be a Boy on Wednesday 30th May at 7.30pm in the Festival Big Top

The Librarian
Salley Vickers - Penguin £16.99

It’s 1958 and Sylvia Blackwell has moved from Swindon to a new life in East Mole, a small market town, to take up the post of Children’s Librarian in a fading library. Her arrival and subsequent relationships with several local children open their minds to literature, but also cause serious unforeseen consequences, ones that could threaten her position. Sylvia also falls for the local doctor, a married man, which leaves her prey to local gossip.
Charmingly subversive and well-written - delightful.
Salley will be talking about The Librarian on Friday 8th June at 7.30pm in the Gluck Studio.

Ottoline and the Purple Fox
Chris Riddell - Macmillan £6.99

After meeting a smartly dressed fox who has made himself a comfortable home in her rubbish bin, Ottoline Brown and her hairy companion Mr Munroe are invited to go on an urban safari which takes her on a tour of the nocturnal animals of her city. These include meerkats down manholes, tiny zebras and blue flamingos. As they travel, Ottoline and Mr Munroe come across mysterious love poems stuck all over the city. Can they help their melancholy author?
Quirky and beautifully illustrated, Children's Laureate Chris Riddell's fourth Ottoline adventure is sure to please his many fans.
Chris will be talking about why he loves to draw and write on Tuesday 29 May at 11am in the Festival Big Top.
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