Swamp Songs

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Swamp Songs by Tom Blass, read by David Thorpe.

'Bracingly original' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

'A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches' Times Literary Supplement

From Romney Marsh to the Danube Delta, from Cyprus to the bayous of Louisiana and on to the Bay of Bengal, Tom Blass crosses swamps, marshes and wetlands to meet the people who have made these in-between worlds their homes.

Here are true stories and myths of smugglers and runaway slaves, of fishermen, shepherds and salt-gatherers – and of tiger gods, flamingos and floods. A dazzling exploration of the precarious lives led where land and water tussle, Swamp Songs is a vital reappraisal and vibrant celebration of people and environments closely intertwined.

Critics Review

Bracingly original ... Blass reveals himself to be more ethnologist than naturalist. While he pays respectful attention to the fauna that he encounters as he tacks from the Romney Marshes to Louisiana’s bayous by way of the Danube delta, it is the people he is after.
Guardian
A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches
Times Literary Supplement
Enriching and magical, Tom Blass's writing is a pleasure to read.
Donald S. Murray
What a joy to roam with Tom Blass through some of nature’s most unjustly maligned and underappreciated habitats, where webs of life interconnect wildly and wondrously with human stories. Swamp Songs is a delicious blend of ecology and culture.
Amy-Jane Beer
PRAISE FOR THE NAKED SHORE: A wonderfully bracing journey around the North Sea. His gaze misses nothing, and his robust prose glitters with story and lore and surprise
Philip Marsden
A hugely enjoyable anti-tour, and a wonderful eulogy to an implacable ocean
Times Literary Supplement
Tom Blass champions a subtlety of vision, a determination to discern the marvellous in the unprepossessing
Daily Telegraph
Remarkable ... I was relieved to find that his work is not of the trendy Thoreau-esque school of travel writing, but more down to earth ... Terrifically enjoyable
Literary Review
Captivating … Rich, evocative prose … Part travelogue, part history book and part anthropological study, Blass’s intensely rewarding memoir succeeds in scattering some light into the North Sea’s cold and murky depths, revealing both its wonders and its indivisible relationship with humanity
Independent
So extremely good that we hope it will bring a warmth and richness to your early spring reading. That said, you’ll probably want to dive into this fabulous account somewhere indoors rather than settling down on a blustery beach
Guardian

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