Greenery: Journeys in Springtime
TIM DEE
(JONATHAN CAPE, 368 PP, £18.99)
Tablet bookshop price £17.09 • Tel 020 7799 4064
One of the most memorable images in Greenery, the fourth book of ruminations on the natural world from the British author and former radio producer Tim Dee, comes as he remembers a Somerset morning spent recording May Day birdsong. “It is,” he says, “always dawn somewhere; somewhere the first splash of light is falling on to Earth.” In early May, the dawn chorus follows that light as it races across the northern hemisphere at 1,300 kph: “Every minute about 21 more kilometres of the Earth’s surface are lit up and come alive with birdsong.” It’s a picture of unstoppable, joyful renewal that is hard to resist.
