The Golden Mole: and Other Living Treasure: 'A rare and magical book.' Bill Bryson

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The titular Golden Mole section was the shortest one but seemed to focus on the moles rather than loads of forays into fictional asides. The sections did get less filler-y towards the end, but that wasn’t enough to save it for me. Nevertheless, I very much appreciate what the author did with this book. Not least because even I, animal lover that I am, learned a thing or two that I hadn‘t known before. From bears to bats to hermit crabs, a witty, intoxicating paean to Earth's wondrous creatures [...] shot through with Rundell's characteristic wit and swagger." Not only are they adorably playful, they have a surprising language-learning capacity - one was taught „Twinkle, twinkle, little star“!

Each creature, or treasure, is first described to us in full and then Rundell hits you with its current status over against its earlier, larger populations and tells you what dreadful things humans have done to them over so very many years. A book as rare and precious as a golden mole. A joyous catalogue of curiosities that builds into a timely reminder that life on planet is worth our wonder." Did you know that a tuna is usually the size of a grizzly bear? The average is 1.8m but the bluefin usually is twice that and weighs around 600kg.It can run at speeds of more than 40km/h for up to 90s which means it can easily outrun us humans and it can crush skulls with its bum. An exuberant celebration of everything from bats, crows and hedgehogs to narwhals and wombats . . . Rundell is incapable of writing a dull sentence.’ Observer In this, as in her expansive treatment of love, Rundell shows that the path towards activism does not have to be born from despair but can result from close attention to the “staggering beauty” of the world. “For what is the finest treasure?” she asks. The answer is, of course, “Life”. Every animal Rundell turns her attention to is in some way endangered because of human activity, be it deforestation, hunting, chemical pollution or habitat destruction, all of which contribute to climate change. Life, our finest treasure, is under threat. Turn off the tap and save the penguins Rundell shows us that the human imagination often looks pedestrian next to nature’s real ingenuity; our fairytales can seem like mundane placeholders for more wonderful truths. It was once proposed that storks “wintered on the moon”; we couldn’t have imagined that a mere two centuries later their wings would reveal the key to human fight. No Roman naturalist or German scholastic would have dared suggest swifts fly the equivalent of five times round the Earth every year. The US Navy models underwater missiles on the body shape of bluefin tuna. But biotech is yet to emulate the properties of the golden orb spider’s web, which can last years. The world is more astonishing, more miraculous and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this passionately persuasive and sharply funny book, Katherine Rundell tells us how and why.

The collection is intended as a “salute to glory rather than a text of fury”, seeking to inspire our determination to protect the animals and environments under threat from climate change and human activity: “I wanted a sense of accumulated beauty; that [ The Golden Mole] would end with a sense of wonderment, a sense that that which we live alongside is so much vaster than even our most vast imagination.” The ways in which attention can be alchemic, the way that attention is the absolute necessary pre-condition for any kind of change The Book of Hopes: Words and Pictures to Comfort, Inspire and Entertain edited by Katherine Rundell It can get pregnant while already pregnant. Not sure I should applaud or feel pity for the females. I have seen many things that I've loved, but I don't think I'll live to see anything as fine as a raft of lemurs, sailing across the sea towards what looked, until the arrival of humans, like safety."

If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. The Golden Mole is another astonishing achievement from Katherine Rundell who is emerging as one of the great writers and storytellers of our age. Having already demonstrated her prowess as a children's novelist and as a literary biographer, she turns her attention to nature writing in this stunning bestiary of twenty-two endangered species, with a short essay on each accompanied by gorgeous illustrations from Talya Baldwin. There is a constant joy in the book . . . A sense throughout of delight and wonder, and a reminder that Iridescence turns up in many insects, some birds, the odd squid: but in only one mammal, the golden mole. […] The golden mole is not, in fact, a mole. It’s more closely related to the elephant.“ The anatomical facts of this little guy are ASTONISHING and I had no idea it even existed.