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    The Peregrine: 50th Anniversary Edition
    Unavailable
    The Peregrine: 50th Anniversary Edition
    Unavailable
    The Peregrine: 50th Anniversary Edition
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Peregrine: 50th Anniversary Edition

    Written by J A Baker, Mark Cocker and John Fanshawe

    Narrated by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Reissue of J. A. Baker’s extraordinary classic of British nature writing, with an exclusive new afterword by Robert Macfarlane.

    Despite the association of peregrines with the wild outer reaches of the British Isles, The Peregrine is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J. A. Baker spent a long winter looking at and writing about the visitors from the uplands — peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them.

    Such luminaries as Ted Hughes and Andrew Motion have cited this as one of the most important books in 20th century nature writing, and the best-selling nature writer Mark Cocker has provided an introduction on the importance of Baker and his work.

    Among fragments of letters to Baker was one from a reader who praised a piece that Baker had written in RSPB Birds magazine in 1971. Apart from a paper on peregrines which Baker wrote for the Essex Bird Report, this article — entitled 'On the Essex Coast' — appears to be his only other published piece of writing, and, with the agreement of the RSPB, it has been included in this updated new edition of Baker's astounding work.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK Audio
    Release dateApr 6, 2017
    ISBN9780008243067
    Unavailable
    The Peregrine: 50th Anniversary Edition
    Author

    J A Baker

    J. A. Baker is a successful psychological thriller writer of numerous books. Born and brought up in Middlesbrough, she still lives in the North East, which inspires the settings for her books.

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    Reviews for The Peregrine

    4/5

    76 ratings8 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Most modern books of this style mix journal observations with a plot. This sticks to a pure journal format, with a few scientific details about peregrines toward the beginning. The journal is semi-fictional, condensing ten years to one. There is some growth in the observer and in one of the peregrines, with them achieving an eventual rapport—but this feels fictionalized. Baker has a lot of empathy for the peregrines, and for their victims. He writes well. I evaluate books like this based on density of acute observations—without overwriting. This is worth three stars, but not more.
    • 5/5
      J. A. Baker's The Peregrine is a remarkable achievement in nature writing for both its style and substance, easily among the finest ever in the category. The book, in diary form, details the author's extensive viewing and tracking of peregrine falcons, but more accurately, his obsessive stalking of these birds of breathtaking speed and predatory skill, in the Essex countryside outside London during the fall of 1962 through the spring of 1963. Baker's singular style is the very model of concision. It is stark and stunning prose, often more like preternatural poetry, exceptional in its beauty. He is not simply reporting the activities of the peregrines, their prey, and their surroundings, he is fully within the action and its environs, and so, therefore, is the reader. It is an unmatched reading experience. Baker displays an uncanny ability to describe color, movement, landscape, and weather with brilliant clarity and nuance.Though less than 200 pages, this is not a quick or easy read. Best digested in small bites, I found it too intense for long sessions. Also, there are many passages, individual sentences, and striking word combinations which must be reread a time or two and lingered over in order to fully appreciate.There is a somewhat lurid focus on the peregrines' kills, unflinchingly described with a certain admiration. Indeed, as the seasons progress, the author increasingly identifies with the peregrine, simultaneously grousing a growing disdain for the human species: a thoroughly fascinating narrative posture. This is essential reading; an altogether unforgettable book.
    • 3/5
      A concentrated work of obsessive observation and potent lyricism. The intensity of the prose style is something to behold, but I could only read this book in short doses. After a few pages, I began to yearn for humor, irony, or just a breath of fresh air to mitigate the fevered pitch of the writing. Excellent nature writing, but this spirit should be cut with some water.
    • 4/5
      aaronbaron says it perfectly. This is a bed of gems; of words and scenes and the occasional fact about, well, peregrines. A creme brulee of a book. It cries out to be transformed into one of those photo rich coffee table books, or selectively read into the background of a television documentary. As it stands, it's best in short doses as aaronbaron suggests. I can't think of any other book that it would naturally interleave with, but I have it sitting alongside T. H. White's 'Goshawk' on my shelf and it seems to fit very well there, a quite contrasted approach to the appreciation of beautiful wild birds.
    • 3/5
      The narrator talks a bit too fast and has an annoying habit of lilting down at the end of every sentence. That combined with the writing style made it hard to focus on as an audiobook.
    • 5/5
      I will never love anything as much as this man loves falcons
    • 5/5
      Peregrines are one of the most impressive apex predators in this country, but it is one that we almost lost because of pesticides and persecution. They are bold, confident birds, fearing nothing else and can also claim to be the world’s fastest animal as they have been recorded at speeds in excess of 200mph in their stoop to kill their prey. Two things saved them, the banning of pesticides and they moved from the rural to the urban environment, skyscrapers replacing the cliff top eyries.

      Half a century ago, J.A. Baker first published this book on these magnificent birds. The book is written as a diary, with him following on foot and bicycle a tiercel and a falcon pair over the winter over the fields and fens of Essex, he would note on his OS maps when he saw them, the prey that they had caught, and general notes on the weather and sky. What started as a fascination with all of the raptors in the region, rapidly became a passion before becoming a complete obsession. He learnt the peregrines habits, sought out their roosts and before long his knowledge of them grew to become an innate ability to know where and when they would appear.

      This is the second time I have read The Peregrine, the first time was back in 2011. Since then I have managed to work my way through an awful lot of natural history books by a lot of authors, a lot of which have been good, all the authors have been passionate about their chosen subject, but none have had that obsession that Baker has. What also strikes me about this book though, is just how sharp it still is, Baker writes with brevity, precision and a style that is quite unique and uncompromising. It pulls no punches either, this in not a sanitised volume on the grace and power of the raptor, you will hear a lot about the remains of their meals is all the gory detail. What you do get though is an observer who completely understands his subject describing that moment when they stop soaring about the fens and start the hunt to the sheer adrenaline of the stoop. It is a snapshot of the time when the peregrine was on the edge of the abyss, somewhat abated now, but not completely safe. If you have not read this before then this 50th-anniversary edition with the thoughts of two other great writers, Mark Cocker and Robert Macfarlane included, is a great place to start.
    • 5/5
      A great book and I loved its free version