Summer: An Anthology for the Changing Seasons

Seasons

by Melissa Harrison (Editor)

Summer is a season of gold against blue; sun dazzle on water; sweet fragrance, and the sound of insects, filling the air. We feel the sand between our toes, or the grass beneath our feet. In these long, warm days, languid and sensual, we reconnect with the natural world, revelling in light and scent and colour once more.
Capturing the high point of the year's progress, Summer presents prose and poetry spanning eight hundred years. Featuring new contributions by Simon Barnes, Michael McCarthy and Esther Woolfson, classic extracts from the work of Charles Dickens, Mary Webb and Philip Larkin, and diverse new nature writing from across the UK, this vibrant and evocative collection will inspire you to go out and enjoy the pleasures of summer.

“A remarkable anthology of abundance capturing both the physical wonders and the psychological enchantments of this glorious season, this book conjures summer in the senses as potently as a field of freshly cut hay. Featuring some of the greatest writers on landscape as well as fantastic new voices, it is a collection that will trigger the memory, evoke new places and people, and help you see afresh the preciousness and precariousness of our natural world.” -- Rob Cowen, author of Common Ground

“A delightful miscellany of reflections on that loveliest of seasons, summer – packed with insights and encounters with nature from a wide range of authors from Gilbert White and George Eliot to a bevy of young contemporary naturalists” — Stephen Moss, author of Wild Hares and Hummingbirds and Wild Bringing Back Britain’s Wildlife

“This book will convince you that summertime is where we truly belong – not through overindulgence in nostalgia, but through realisation of our core values and roots. It will take you home” -- Matthew Oates, author of In Pursuit of A Fifty-year Affair

“Lavishly capturing the nature of the season in all its slow, sensual splendour, Summer is a potent reminder of the riches that surround us, and a poignant evocation of all that we cannot bear to lose” – Sharon Blackie, author of If Women Rose Rooted and editor of Earthlines

“[A] delicious antidote … a summer collection to wake up a tired imagination, like sunshine warming a plant to coax it into opening.” – Richard Littledale, blogger

“I’ve been dipping in and out of this beautiful anthology for some time but didn’t want to post a review until I had read every entry. There are poems, extracts and essays spanning several centuries, so that there is something for every reader in this celebration of the season ... There’s a beauty to this book – from the glorious cover to the simple illustrations like that of the swallow that adorn the inside pages. The writings are all evocative, enlightening, entertaining or thought provoking ... I shall treasure it and return to it again and again ... A perfect gift for any lover of words or nature.” -- Linda’s Book Bag blog

“Taken together, these pieces truly give the feeling of an English summer. The older writing is remarkably undated, which contributes to a sense of continuity across the centuries ... These are really rather lovely books. Summer is a perfect bedside companion to dip into as the days warm up. Impossible not to covet the whole four-season set.” – BookishBeck blog

“There are so many lovely things that I could pull out from this book … I know that I will enjoy revisiting this beautifully produced anthology” -- Beyondedenrock.com

Praise for Spring

"A book to live with and to love… features a wonderfully various array of poetry and prose, from Chaucer to the present day, that allows us to see the arrival and the passing of our most fecund season (and those who have written about it) in fresh and stimulating ways." -- Matthew Adams, The Independent

‘[A] tremendous, soul-lifting collection … a profound evocation of what rejuvenation means to the winter-stunned psyche’—Lucy Jones, BBC Wildlife Magazine

"The cover of this book is absolutely striking… I couldn't wait to look inside. It is so full of life… Full of perfectly mixed passages of the wonders of nature, this is a book I will turn to each year as the vivacious season of spring approaches." --The Book Magnet

"A very lovely object … I was captivated by the writing. These were the words of people who wanted to share their experiences of the world around them; some of them wrote to inform, some of them wrote to celebrate, and of course the very best of them did both … There is nothing in it that doesn't deserve its place, and I can think of nothing that should be there but isn't. It would make a lovely Easter gift. It's a book that I know I will enjoy revisiting." -- Beyondedenrock.com

"Everything about this book, from Lynn Hatzius' gorgeous cover, to the rich cream of the pages, to the meticulously selected content is an invitation … to taste the Spring in the air, to hear the grasses grow, to lose yourself in a vast sky o...

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Poetry, Essays, Summer, Short Stories, Natural History

224 pages, Paperback

Published May 19, 2016

About the author

Melissa Harrison is the author of the novels Clay and At Hawthorn Time, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize, and one work of non-fiction, Rain, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. She is a nature writer, critic and columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian, among others. Her new novel All Among the Barley is due for publication in August, 2018..

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a lovely book appeared, the second of four anthologies for four different seasons, I knew that it would hold a wonderful array of perspectives of what summer brings.

Here are three things:

It brings lighter evenings, and that means that we don't have to stay on well-lit streets for the evening dog walk. We can visit the boating pond where Briar loves to jump in the water, and where shoals of tiny fish sometimes catch my eye in the stream. We can visit the gardens where we hear so much bird song, and where Briar has a range of places where she likes to pause for a while to observe whatever might be happening in the undergrowth. Sometimes I watch with her and sometimes I read a book. And we can visit the park, where our progress is similar; there is less bird song but there are squirrels to be observed and chased ....

It brings a new stage in the development of the seagulls who grow up on the roofs of the garages and workshops in out back lane. The chicks grow so quickly and by summer they are almost fully grown, with just their colouring, the last of their fluffiness, and a little uncertainty in their manner to distinguish them from the adults. They are still learning to fly, sometimes falling off roofs, and sometimes walking up the lane, seeing what the world has to offer them. We saw one youngster on the beach a couple of days ago and I think his parents were trying to teach him to swim. One adult was bobbing on the water not far from the shore, one was behind him trying to nudge him in the same direction, but he wouldn't have it ....

It brings visitors to Cornwall. Many of them are lovely, some of them are horribly insensitive to those of us who live here, and the sheer weight of numbers means that there are many places we avoid in the summer. Luckily we know many places that are a little off the beaten track, and whose appeals are maybe a little more subtle that the places whose names you will know. We love the stark open spaces around Madron Carn; a walk not far from there that takes in a well, the ruins of a wayside chapel, and a long straight avenue of trees; the paths around the village of Gulval, and the fields above it; a number of walks alongside and nearby the river at St Erth; the steady walk to the top of Chapel Carn Brea, the highest point in West Cornwall; following the stream down the Cot Valley; the salt marshes and a lovely garden walk at Hayle. We went to Hayle yesterday, and I have a lovely image in my head of Briar stood in a stream, fascinated by a dragonfly ....

I found gulls, dragonflies, country walks, and so many other things in this wonderful book. It collects together lots of short pieces, none more than a few pages long. Some of them are old and some of them are new; some of them are complete in themselves and some of them are taken from longer works; and because the credits come at the end of each piece I sometimes found that something I thought was old was new and that something I thought was new was old. Because, of course, some things don't change and one of the lovely things about looking at the natural world is that we can see the same things and feel just the same as generations who have long gone.

There are a range of different styles - there are storytellers, diarists, poets, reporters and conversationalists within these pages - but the pieces sit together quite naturally because there is much that unifies them. They observe and they communicate, in a way that is accessible to both those at home in the country and those who are interested but don't really know what it is they are looking at.

There are so may highlights that it is almost impossible to pick favourites. I loved bat watching with Jacqueline Bain. I was taken by surprise by some lovely writing that I would never have guessed was by Charles Dickens. I was pleased to climb a hill in the Cotswolds with Vivienne Hambly; I was delighted that Jo Cartmell wrote of replacing her lawn with meadow flowers, reminding me that I have a plan a little like that for part of our garden; I was very taken with Laurie Lee's list of some of the things that make a summer; and I was so pleased to take a boat trip with Simon Barnes and his son, who has Downs Syndrome and joie de vivre, and reminded me of my brother who had those things too ....

I'm going to pick out three more now, to balance my three. They're diverse, they're vivid, and one after another they captivated me.

Just a few pages from 'The Charm of Birds' by Sir Edward Grey communicated his love of his subject, simply and clearly:

"Of all bird songs and sounds there is none that I would prefer to the spring notes of the curlew. I have seen the bird finish its notes on the ground after alighting , but I have not observed if it ever gives them without any flight. As a rule the wonderful note are uttered on the wing, and are the accompaniment of a graceful flight that has motions of evident pleasure. The notes do not sound passionate; they suggest peace, rest, healing, joy, an assurance of happiness past, present and to come. To listen to curlews on a bright, clear April day is one of the best experiences that a lover of birds can have."

John Tyler provides a stunning account of the short life cycle of a glow-worm, in a narrative that reads like a dystopian thriller:

"When the last sunset colours have disappeared from the sky and the glassy slope behind the brambles has faded from greens to shades of grey, the beetle makes her way to the surface and begins to climb slowly up a grass stem. As she does so a remarkable thing happens. From the tip of her tail a brilliant lime-green light shines out across the colourless hillside. She is a glow-worm! With neither wings to fly nor jaws to feed, her life has now become a race against time. She must use her light to attract a mate and then lay her eggs before the energy reserves that she had saved up during her two years as a snail-eating larva and she starves to death."

After that it was lovely to relax with a piece written more than a century ago; elegant descriptive writing from 'Nature Near London' by Richard Jefferies:

"There is a slight but perceptible colour in the atmosphere of summer. It is not visible close at hand, nor always where that light falls strongest, and if looked at too long it sometimes fades away. But over gorse and heath, in the warm hollow of wheat-fields, and round about the rising ground there is something more than air alone. It is not mist, nor the hazy vapour of autumn, nor the blue tints that come over the distant hills and woods."

There are so many lovely things that I could pull out from this book.

Some of the pieces spoke to me more than others, but don't think that there was a single one that wasn't worthy of its place.

I know that I will enjoy revisiting this beautifully produced anthology.

And I am already wondering what the autumn and winter volumes will bring ....

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

In partnership with the UK’s Wildlife Trusts, London-based publisher Elliott & Thompson is celebrating the seasons with a series of anthologies edited by novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison. My husband had a short piece published in the first volume (Spring), so I was eager to get my hands on a copy of Summer.

The format in all the books is roughly the same: they’re composed of short pieces that range from one to a few pages and run the gamut from recurring phenological records (Gilbert White and Thomas Furly Forster) and extracts from classic literature (Adam Bede and Far from the Madding Crowd) to recent nature books (Mark Cocker’s Claxton and Paul Evans’s Field Notes from the Edge). In addition, there are new contributions from established writers or talented amateurs, one as young as twelve – heartening proof that young people are still enthused about nature.

With the exception of the poems, none of these entries have titles, and the attribution and date of composition are not given until the very end. The idea behind this pseudo-anonymity, I think, is that if – as I sometimes was – you are patient enough to not skip ahead to discover who wrote it when, you will judge all of the pieces by the same standards. You approach each without expectations, and in many cases may be stumped as to whether the writing is historical or modern. I found W.H. Hudson’s and Mary Webb’s extracts particularly readable, for instance; you wouldn’t guess they’re from the early decades of the twentieth century.

There are 70-some pieces here on a wide variety of subjects, but a few of the ones that struck me were on badger-watching (Caroline Greville, who is writing a memoir on the topic), looking for orchids (environmental journalist Michael McCarthy), moth trapping, and night-time wildlife like glow-worms and bats. I especially appreciated Alexandra Pearce’s essay on the brief life of mayflies and Nicola Chester’s on searching for owls. Of the previously published pieces, Paul Evans’s on ant swarms is a stand-out. My two favorites, though, are from celebrated nature columnist Simon Barnes, who writes about paddling a canoe in Norfolk with his son in search of adventure, and Esther Woolfson, who, as she does in her book Field Notes from a Hidden City, illuminates the unnoticed wildlife of Aberdeen.

Again and again this message comes through: take the time to look closely and you will find great wonders. “Perhaps as adults our lives are so filled with bills, chores, jobs and other things that we often forget to stop and look at the world around us,” Jan Freedman, curator of natural history at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, astutely notes. Whether it’s lichens or weevils, all you generally have to pay to experience nature’s delights is attention. I loved Alexi Francis’s description of a hare: “Haunches down, nose cross-stitched, it closes its eyes to the sun in a moment of blissful slumber.” Having that moment of communion with nature and then choosing just the right words to capture it is what this book is all about.

Taken together, these pieces truly give the feeling of an English summer. The older writing is remarkably undated, which contributes to a sense of continuity across the centuries. However, the book also evokes more universal notions of summer: those drowsy, leisurely days we gild with nostalgia. As Harrison puts it in her introduction, the longing for summer is really a wish to return to childhood: “Those elysian summers, polished to dazzling brightness by the flow of years, can never be recaptured; but we have this summer, however imperfect we as adults might deem it, and we can go out and seek it at every opportunity we find.”

As the relatively frequent typos – three in the Barnes piece alone, for example – suggest, the series has been somewhat hastily put together. Nonetheless, these are really rather lovely books. Summer is a perfect bedside companion to dip into as the days warm up. Impossible not to covet the whole four-season set.

With thanks to Marianne Thorndahl at Elliott & Thompson for the free copy for review.

Originally published with images on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

My memories of summer are of long hot days spent on the beach with frequent dips into the sparkling sea to cool off, lying reading on the grass warmed by the sun and swatting wasps away from picnics. This is the UK though, and sometimes it rains… Summer is the time of intensity, the acid green freshness of spring fades as the long warm days bring the flowers and insects out in the race to reproduce. As the season pivots on the solstice, the days begin to shorten even though the sun is still building in intensity for some of the hottest days in the year.

Harrison has once again brought together a varied collection of essays, poetry and articles about summer. She has drawn from a number of classic texts of literature like Cider with Rosie and The Natural History of Selbourne by Gilbert White and Hardy that manage to evoke a summer of a past age. On top of these classic authors there are a number of essays from well-known writers such as Paul Evans and Mark Cocker, but where Harrison excels is finding exciting new writers, like Jo Cartmell and Emma Oldham, who are adding greatly to the breadth of nature writing that we now have in this country. As with all Elliot and Thompson books, the cover is stunning and it has delightful little sketches scattered throughout the book. Essential reading for any nature lover and a book to be dipped into each time summer rolls around again.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time reading this book, this was one of the last books I struggled to read on Kindle, didn’t enjoy it much at all, for this re-read I have a physical copy and absolutely loved it…I can focus so much better when I got a proper book with pages in me hands. This is the third book from this series that I have read this year, Summer, the hottest time of the year….or so it would seem, not long after starting this book in the sunny garden I had to come indoors due to the rain and the weather has been rubbish since, for me this unpredictable English weather is what epitomises summer, going for a long hike carrying clothing for all weathers.

The way these books work is nature lovers write about what summer means to them, whether it is rain, the beach, harvest time or a particular species of bird there is guaranteed to be a moment or two where you find yourself nodding along thinking that is spot on. The thing that stands out in this book on summer are the wee bugs, summer seems to be the time that insects rule the land, a few favourite essays were about bumblebees being compared to fairies and the swarming of flying ants, I always remember my grandparents house having a large ants nest under it and each year the 1000s of flying ants emerging from under the gas fire.

This anthology is similar to the previous books, you have a lovely mix of poetry, diaries, encyclopaedia entries, essays and the wonderful Reverend Gilbert White, his work is a particular favourite of mine and I always hope that an update on his tortoise is included. I like how I’m starting to recognise a writers voice and can sit smugly when I have guessed right. Whilst I didn’t enjoy this the first time around it has quickly become my favourite in the series after a re-read, 100% recommend giving these a go, very inspirational and each little bit of writing captures your imagination.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...

[Jaffareadstoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this anthology, editor, Melissa Harrison has put together an assortment of reminisces, short stories, observations and poems which capture the very essence of summer and which collectively show just how precious is the season. Some of the authors are well known to us, like Charles Dickens, Laurie Lee and George Elliott, there’s even a snippet from my favourite Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, other authors may be less well known, but together they all combine to form a well written collection, which is a real delight to read. There’s even a charming piece by Alan Wright,2016 about summer at one of my favourite places to visit, Brockholes in Lancashire.

It's a lovely jewel of a book that will sit quite comfortably on a book shelf and which can be opened at whim and quite simply ,wherever you land in the text, there will be something of interest and it won’t disappoint.

If you have ever walked through a wheat field in summer, well, this snippet, written by Nicola Chester, 2016, caught my eye “…and the wheat field crackles and pops like a bowl of cereal as it ripens in the sun...” ..

Beautifully observed and with such a delicious combination of short stories, this is a book to treasure and at the same time support a really good cause.

[lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the last book in the series, and I actually enjoyed it way more than I thought. Summer isn't my favourite season - I hate it; I'm dying from this unbearable heat- but this was surprisingly nice. The entries were all different from each other - there was ones on wildlife, plant life, weather patterns, landscapes, and so on - which I think lacked from Spring.

As always, I was introduced to a variety of new authors and I was able to re-live some of my favourite pieces of writings. This collection achieved it aim: to make me appreciate nature. I can now look at a season that I hate and view it with completely new eyes. I can appreciate the hot weather, despite never wanting to go out in it. I can appreciate the insects, despite them terrifying me. I can learn to love summer thanks to this.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book just so much

[scl.ashx · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was so beautiful that I am about to cry ~

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the same fun with this as with "Spring", which I read in a sort of game - who wrote this? is it old or recent? do I recognize the style?

And as before, I found the old excerpts to be most to my taste. Laurie Lee is a wonder-worker with words, after all. You can't beat a poet who writes about nature. But so many of the contemporary writers were great as well. John Tyler's story about the life-cycle of a firefly, for instance, was my favourite, but the way Olivia Lang describes a plume of pollen drifting towards her, or Paul Evans describes the synchronized nuptual flights of quite separate flying ant colonies, or this lovely paragraph from Esther Woolfson -

"The rush hour's muted, the air still unusually warm. There aren't many evenings here when one can sit outside comfortably but on this one, I do. I take a candle to read by as it darkens. Time in summer seems too fast and too slow, an illusion of day-length or light or the novelty of heat. The swifts are shrieking in the evening sky. Bats flick around the corners of the house. This is the moment, they seem to say, this one, now."

- sheer beauty.

[Mark Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

It must be summer because I am picking elderflowers from which to make champagne. Spring is over, and if you are a birder then you are now in the position of suspecting that any passage wader on your local patch is already heading south after a nest failure (it’s really already autumn!).

This anthology is one of the three siblings to Spring previously reviewed here. It’s the same model and the same editor and gives a similar amount of pleasure.

At the risk of repeating myself (but you’ll either not have seen it or forgotten it, I know) I enjoyed the modern writers in this volume as much as the ‘famous’ writers included too. Having enjoyed her piece in Spring I sought out Nicola Chester in here and she didn’t disappoint,. Young Zach Haynes writes well of a local pair of rare birds and his remark ‘There is no way of knowing when they will be back again, so I spent a good while watching them‘ could apply to all wildlife sightings.

The big names included here include George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Gilbert White, Laurie Lee and Charles Dickens. But the range of voices and perspectives is broad and pleasing.

Just remember ‘the richest, fullest time of year is when June is wearing to an end when one knows without the almanac that spring is over and gone‘ but who wrote that and which county did he, for it was a he, assign as the place to enjoy it?

Considering that spring is the best, the very best, easily the best, by far the best, season, I think summer just edges it in the quality of writing.

If we have a summer, grab this book, a cool drink, a sun hat and a quiet place – and enjoy!

This review first appeared on my blog on 19 June 2016 http://markavery.info/2016/06/19/sund...

[Geraldine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent anthology to follow on from Spring: An Anthology for the Changing Seasons. Again, 60+ articles from a variety of writers, mainly prose, mainly non-fiction, but some poetry and a sprinkling of fiction.

The writers cover several centuries and women are well represented - I didn't feel compelled to count the number of each sex. Obviously, in such an anthology, there will be pieces you love, pieces you enjoy, those that are quite interesting, and, inevitably, some you have no desire to reread. Fortunately the last category was small, for me, anyway.

I read one or two pieces a day most days from early June, finishing in early August. I feel that I have kept up with the carefully planned chronology of the book, which makes me sad, because that makes it feel as though Summer is over. But it isn't. Even though weather forecasters will start mentioning 'meteorological autumn' in little over three weeks. But for me, summer continues until the equinox, clocks don't go back until late October. I do dislike November and December, but a lot of that's about the commercial fixation of the Festering Season. But October can be nice.

I don't understand a lot of what's written in here - or, rather, I can't attach the named plants, birds and trees to those that I see. I have resigned myself to not knowing most flowers, birds and trees, but I still think that the writers of these pieces have enhanced my summer walks, especially those that look at the bigger picture and reflect the turning of the seasons.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took my time reading this anthology and at the end I can say that I enjoyed the collection, but not as much as the Winter version I read during winter. I did not conjure up the magic of summer for me quite often enough.

I felt the second half of the stories/poems/snippets was definitely stronger than the first half of the book. In the first half there were too many stories that felt more spring-y than summer-y and the imagery was just not quite strong enough.

The second half felt much more on the nose and I enjoyed much more. There were still some writing that missed the mark for me, certainly more than in Winter, but I will still treasure this anthology. I am especially fond of the nature writing when it conjures the epic feeling of summer and there were plenty of snippets that did just that.

If you enjoy nature writing and poems relating to nature and the seasons you are bound to enjoy this anthology. I am looking forward to reading Autumn and Spring in their respective seasons.

[Darlene Messenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

British summer essays and poems compiled in this book will be one I dip into year after year. It reminds me of my childhood with many vivid descriptions of farm life and small town living close to nature. Part of a seasonal series, I recommend getting all four books. Slow read each essay or poem as a daily practice, devotionally. Highly descriptive, each essay is poignant and based in the natural world. It has made me appreciate the world around me more and seek the minute blessings of where I now live.

[Sarah Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection, of mainly non fiction stories, poems and observations based around Summer. Wonderfully descriptive and evocative, I have really enjoyed reading this book over the Summer months. A beautiful little book, perfect to dip in and out of when you like. I have now read Spring, Summer and Winter. I already have Autumn and am now waiting till the leaves change colour to read it.

[Aileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took my time with this one, dipping in and out over the course of a few months. I found if I read one snippet after the other, they started to blur. Quite a lot of the pieces felt very similar, but my favourite were the two about glow worms and May flies, their short lives as adults driven by the sole purpose to mate and lay eggs before they die.

[Sheila Compton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful anthology of writing about summer from an enormous variety of authors, ranging from a 12 year old blogger to the distinguished and influential Reverend Gilbert White. The extracts reveal many different aspects of summer, and the natural events that happen in this season. A joy to dip into and relax with.

[Lucia Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quote:

“There’s a slight but perceptible colour in the atmosphere of summer. It is not visible close at hand, nor always where the light falls strongest, and if looked at too long it sometimes fades away. But over gorse and heath, in the warm hallows of wheatfields, and round about the rising ground there is something more than air alone.”

~ Richard Jefferies, Nature Near London, 1883

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful seasonal collection (the third I've read now). Perfect for dipping into with a morning coffee or on a lunchbreak. I've learned quite a bit, incidentally, from reading these as well as been entertained. They always help amplify my enjoyment of each season.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this but not as much as Winter. Maybe because there is a mystic with the other seasons to me then there is to summer. Still I liked the old essays more than the newer essays. My favorite was the one on the bee.

[Iulia]

Boring selection of mostly boring texts. I enjoyed the excerpts from the likes of Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Laurie Lee and a few others, but struggled with the vast majority of the other essays - I have no idea who the random writers are, or why they feature in this anthology. There are so many of them, and so repetitive. I'd have preferred fewer contributors and more substantial, less dull contributions.
I’ll give this series a pass.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wieder eine schöne Sammlung von Texten, super zur Einstimmung auf warme Tage!

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this more in hope than expectation (we're having a rubbish summer here). A pleasant anthology of summery writing.

[BookswithLydscl | · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
this one didnt land as well as the others - I think the other seasons make for better reflections.

[L. Ward · Rating 1 out of 5]

ATROCIOUSLY boring and a very obvious cash-grab by someone whom cannot write their own work. Every page was like dragging myself across burning coals covered with rusty nails and broken glass. Despite it begin little over 200 pages and written mostly in short stories, it's all just drivel. The better works were fine in their own original publications, and the rest were almost entirely awful and more than likely written by friends of the author. Really, I don't need dozens of messy stories about seagulls or forests that barely differ from the last 150 pages. You can tell they were thrown in there just to pad this out.
There were three interesting stories: the glowworms, the bees and the bats. That is all.

I definitely won't continue with this series. This really was one of the worst books I've ever read.

[Linda Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been dipping in and out of this beautiful anthology for some time but didn’t want to post a review until I had read every entry. There are poems, extracts and essays spanning several centuries, so that there is something for every reader in this celebration of the season.

I might be biased as my favourite author, Thomas Hardy, is featured a couple of times as are other well known classical writers like George Elliott and Charles Dickens (with a piece I hadn’t previously read to my shame) as well as more modern writers like Benjamin Zephaniah, but I thought the eclectic mix of pieces was glorious.

However, I think the passages I enjoyed most were from writers I haven’t encountered before. I loved In An August Garden by Alison Brackenbury as she explores where those enormous spiders that appear at the end of summer actually come from. I found Jacqueline Bain’s piece on ‘the black, the drab and the furtive’ illustrated a side to summer we seldom consider. I hadn’t though about a stag farting either, but the 13th century anonymous piece means I’ll never look at deer in quite the same way again!

There’s a beauty to this book – from the glorious cover to the simple illustrations like that of the swallow that adorn the inside pages. The writings are all evocative, enlightening, entertaining or thought provoking. It was a relief to find Timothy, Reverend Gilbert White’s tortoise, had gained weight in the year since 1775 and I found Janet Willoner’s piece about the otter read like the most beautiful poetry even though it’s a prose piece.

Now I’ve read all the elements in this lovely book, I shall treasure it and return to it again and again in the future because, to steal from Jan Freedman’s quoting of David Attenborough, this book affords ‘an innate pleasure and delight and interest and curiosity in the natural world’.

Summer – An Anthology for the Changing Seasons would make a perfect gift for any lover of words or nature.

[Michelle Ryles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps it is due to the British Summer being a bit of a wet weekend that I didn't really get a feel of Summer shining out of the pages, like I did with Spring. There are some excellent passages in this collection and I was pleased to see Timothy the tortoise getting a mention, courtesy of the Reverend Gilbert White's The Naturalist's Journal from 1776.

I love how the classics mingle with modern day writings in this collection; you quickly switch from reading classics like Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee to modern day writings of stars, butterflies and bees. Each passage reminds us of lazy summer days with beautiful butterflies flitting between flowers and drunken bees weighed down with pollen. Perhaps bees really were the origin of fairies, for what is more magical than seeing these little furry creatures buzzing around our garden? It is almost unbelievable to think that one day bees might become extinct, then fairies really will be a thing of myth and legend.

Published in conjunction with The Wildlife Trusts, the sale of each anthology helps to raise funds for trusts throughout the UK. The amazing cover of Summer perfectly captures the essence of the season and no stone is left unturned as each passage describes this most longed for season.

I received this book from the publisher, Elliott & Thompson in exchange for an honest review.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology is the kind of book the reader can joyfully dip in and out of discovering a wealth of voices from past and present. A collection of short essays, extracts and poetry is difficult to review – but it encompasses all we love about summer. I have marked so many passages worth quoting that I hope you’ll all forgive me for allowing some of the pieces to speak for themselves.

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...

[Donna Boultwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely collection of essays and poems. Made me feel like I was back into the countryside again. I'm looking forward to reading the rest in the series now.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If spring is all about looking forward, and autumn about dying back, summer surely is the present moment: a long, hot now that marks the sultry climax of the year."