Richard Smyth

'Generous, moving and alive. A gift' - Tim Dee, author of Greenery ' Intelligent, thought-provoking and always, always interesting ' - Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment 'Smyth writes with warmth and engaging perception about our relationship and understanding of the natural world on our doorsteps' - Jon Dunn, author of The Glitter in the Green 'Fresh and tender and playful' - Patrick Galbraith, author of In Search of One Last Song Weren't they richer, rock pools, wasn't the seashore busier, when I was a kid? Richard Smyth had always been drawn to the natural world, but when he became a father he found a new joy and a new urgency in showing his kids the everyday wild things around them. As he and his children explore rockpools in Whitley Bay, or the woods and moors near his Yorkshire home, he imagines the world they might inhabit as they grow up. Through different objects discovered on their wanderings - a beech leaf, a jay feather, a limpetshell - Smyth examines his own past as well as that of the early natural historians, weaving together history, memoir, and environmentalism to form a new kind of nature writing: one that asks both what we have lost, and what we have yet to find.

Finding Wild Things With My Kids

The Jay, The Beech and the Limpetshell

In this fascinating account, Richard Smyth asks what it is about birdsong that we so love. Exploring the myriad ways in which it has influenced literature, music, science, and our very ideas of what it means to be human, Smyth's nuanced investigation shows that what we hear says as much about us, our dreams and desires, as it does about the birds and their songs. At a time when our birdsong is growing quieter, with fewer voices, more thinly spread, A Sweet, Wild Note is a celebration of the complex relationships between birds, people, and the land; it is also a passionate call to arms lest our trees and hedgerows fall silent.

What We Hear When the Birds Sing

A Sweet, Wild Note

It's 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after the Great War. John Lowell, a naturalist who writes articles on the flora and fauna of the shoreline, and his wife Harriet lead a simple life, basking in their love for each other and enjoying the company of John's visiting old school friend, David. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier and pleasure-grounds a mile out to sea, unexpected tensions and temptations arise. As secrets multiply, Harriet, John and David must each ask themselves, what price is to be paid for pleasure?

The Woodcock

Lucy Caldwell

Georgina Harding

Danny Rhodes

Rory Gleeson

A group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other’s changing bodies before a Friday night disco… A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev… An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose… The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces – their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son’s reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.

The BBC National Short Story Award 2021

Birdsong is woven into culture, emotions, and landscape. It is the soundtrack to our world, shaping experiences of place and belonging. We have tried to capture this fleeting, ephemeral beauty, and the feelings it inspires, for millennia. In this rich and insightful account, Richard Smyth asks what it is about birdsong that we so love, exploring the myriad ways in which it has influenced literature, music, and art, our feelings about the natural world, and our very ideas of what it means to be human. Does the song-thrush mean to sing "a full-hearted evensong/Of joy illimited," as he does in Hardy's poem "The Darkling Thrush?" Examining his own conflicted love of birdsong, Smyth's nuanced investigation shows that what we hear says as much about us, our dreams and desires, as it does about the birds and their songs. At a time when birdsong is growing quieter, with fewer voices, more thinly spread, this beautiful book is a celebration of the complex relationships between birds, people, and landscape; it is also a passionate call to arms and an invitation to act lest our trees and hedges fall silent.

Under the Sumptuary Laws of 1363, merchants were forbidden to wear pointy shoes in excess of 61/2in in length.One of Henry VII's most prized possessions was the preserved leg of St George, a gift from Louis XII of France.In February 1789, George III pursued a best-selling lady novelist in a high-speed chase through Kew Gardens.This book contains hundreds of 'strange but true' facts and anecdotes about English history. Arranged into a miniature history of England, and with bizarre and hilarious true tales for every era, it will interest and delight readers everywhere.

English History

This book is a treasure trove of English oddities, crammed with the most curious stories, remarkable facts and unexpected goings-on from the country’s long and convoluted history. From frogs’ legs at Stonehenge to knicker elastic in the Blitz, this is England – the unauthorised biography.

Strange but True

English History: Strange but True

When an American whaler arrives to a British coastal town, the peace of its inhabitants is disrupted. It's 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after World War I. John Lowell, a naturalist who writes articles on the flora and fauna of the shoreline, and his wife Harriet, lead a simple life, basking in their love for each other and enjoying the company of John's visiting old school friend, David. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier and pleasure-grounds a mile out to sea, unexpected tensions and temptations arise. As secrets multiply, Harriet, John, and David must each ask themselves: what price is to be paid for pleasure?

This is the hidden history of an invention that we use every day but seldom dare to speak of. In medieval China it was cutting-edge technology. For 19th-century Americans it was a newfangled alternative to dried corncobs and the Sears & Roebuck catalogue. Wits in Georgian London preferred pages of bad poetry. The sages of ancient Athens were content to wield the xylospongion instead. It's the tale of toilet paper; the biography of bumfodder. From its origins at the Imperial court of Emperor Hongwu to its reinvention as a quack remedy for haemorrhoids in 1870s New York city; from the Dutch and their mussel-shells to Henry VIII and his Groom of the Stool; from Madame de Prie's pioneering bidet to the space-age Washlet; from leaf-wielding chimpanzees to Mr Thirsty Fiber and the world's first three-adjective loo-roll - it's a story of necessity and invention, luxury and squalor, experiment and tradition. What does a submarine crew do when it runs out of toilet paper? Who stole the Pope's loo-roll? Does printer's ink cause piles? How do you fold a sheet of toilet paper in half more than seven times? What did 'bumphleteers' do, and why? Richard Smyth answers the questions you never thought to ask about the product we can't live without.

Richard Smyth

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