The Wild Life of the Fox by John Lewis-Stempel

To love and loathe the fox is a British condition.'The fox is our apex predator, our most beautiful and clever killer. Exploring a long and sometimes complicated relationship, The Wild Life of the Fox captures our love - and sometimes loathing - of this magnificent creature in vivid detail and lyrical prose. And yet we long to stroke the tumbling cubs outside their tunnel homes and watch the vixen stalk the cornfield.

We have witnessed its wild touch, watched it slink by bins at night and been chilled by its high-pitched scream. To love and loathe the fox is a British condition.' The fox is our apex predator, our most beautiful and clever killer. 'I adore the fox for its magnificence I hate the fox for killing my chickens. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.Book Description Hardcover. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. To order a copy for £12.74 (RRP £14.99) go to or call 03. The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood is published by Doubleday. As Lewis-Stempel says, “Woods: they inhabit the mind.” This heartfelt, evocative book shows that woods such as Cockshutt, which has stood since before “the Romans trod their road to Hereford”, occupy a special place in both the countryside and our psyches.

Above, the sparrowhawk is “a twisting blade of badness”. In October, “the leaves of the service trees flutter, flicker, flame, in pseudo fire” and in March he discovers “primroses leaking spots of sun out of the earth”. He has a distinctively brisk, muscular style of writing that has a poetic intensity and concision. But it’s his observation of the natural world – the sight, the sound, the smell of it – that is so memorable. The diary form is perfect for conveying the shifting moods of the seasons and allows Lewis-Stempel to delve into the history, lore, poetry and even the language of woods. He considers himself to be a “countryside writer”, not a nature writer: “I give the view of the countryside from someone who works there.” There’s a powerful sense in his books of the land as something to be worked and managed. His family come from “farm stock” dating back to the 13th century. The wood also supplied him with logs for his fire (“the released sunlight of years gone by”), wild plants, mushrooms for his table (the book includes recipes, from elderflower champagne to chestnut soup) and the occasional pheasant and wood pigeon: “I farm for wildlife. In the summer he harvested “tree hay”, leaf fodder from ash, oak and elm, storing it as winter feed to which he added vitamin-rich upper branches of holly (whose leaves don’t have spines). Lewis-Stempel kept pigs, cows and Hebridean sheep (“small, black and primitive”) to control what would otherwise be a “sea of briars crashing around the trees”, allowing wild flowers to grow and attracting wildlife. For this reason, Cockshutt is a working wood, an example of “agroforestry”.

The Wild Life of the Fox by John Lewis-Stempel