Rewild Yourself: Making Nature More Visible in Our Lives

Journalist Barnes (How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher) reminds readers to take time out to pay full attention to their natural surroundings in this earnest and accessible how-to guide. Encouraging his audience to get back into “the habit of looking and seeing and listening and hearing,” Barnes offers sound advice and educational information. Some of his tidbits are scientific—he discusses how to identify butterflies by nearby trees, for instance, or how to know which animals are in the vicinity by recognizing their droppings. Other information is more pragmatic, as when he declares that all aspiring amateur naturalists should own their own pair of waterproof trousers, so “you are free to step out in a downpour—and not just survive. You can actively enjoy it.” Barnes recommends a good set of binoculars, too (“Take them with you whenever you go for a walk... You never know what might turn up”) and says one should keep the lens caps off one’s cameras during jaunts, so as to be ready in an instant to capture a special sight. Informative and useful, his manual should prove a valuable resource for any novice nature-philes interested in reveling in the “wildness in us all.”[em] Agent: Georgina Capel, Georgina Capel Assoc. (Oct.) [/em]