n

‘As bracing as a great blustery lungful of ozone-filled air … Hoare has wonderful, almost child-like relish for colourful stories and incredible facts … His passionate engagement will infect you. As you close this book, you will probably feel as ecstatic as the author does after one of his cold morning dips.’ Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times

n

‘A beautifully written mixture of travelogue and essay … Hoare has invented a new genre: an elegy for something not yet lost.’ David Evans, Independent on Sunday

n

‘A passionate, wonderfully engaging book … His oceanic pursuit of the most remarkable animals on the planet has produced two books of the utmost interest.’ Christopher Hirst, Independent

n

‘Everything he writes is remarkably interesting, and always expressed in his singular prose, at the one and the same time both exact and numinous … Hoare’s enthusiasms are boundless … packed full of strange delights – perhaps a bit of a ragbag, but what rags! And what a bag!’ Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday ****

n

‘A grand cabinet of natural curiosities … The pace is exhilarating. The learning is profound. The surprises are tumultuous and the simple love of nature, in all its forms … is a delight.’ Jan Morris, Sunday Telegraph

n

‘Ceaselessly fascinating … In flowing, liquid prose, Hoare is drawn back and forth from story to story, place to place … This is a magnificent book.’ Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times

n

‘A profound and lyrical love affair.’ Bella Bathurst, Observer

n

‘Hoare weaves together stories of magic, faith and fear, of wilderness, destruction, mortality and nature’s often savage beauty … This is a work where it pays to go with the flow.’
Gerard Henderson, Daily Express ****

n

‘Glorious stuff.’ Caspar Henderson, Guardian

n

‘The pace is exhilarating. The learning is profound’ Telegraph

n