By Melissa Harrison

Favorite quote: “The village is far behind me now, its squat church tower lost in the trees. The lane I walk is flanked by hawthorn hedges, and on the verges glossy hart’s tongue ferns funnel the rain so it puddles in their centres where the new fronds unfurl. There are bluebells, too; not the pushy, varicolored hybrids that colonies my London garden, but English bluebells hung with silver drops, delicately drooped like a shepherd’s crook, and with a curious luminosity to their cobalt flowers.”

From the publisher: A wonderful meditation on the English landscape in wet weather by the acclaimed novelist and nature writer, Melissa Harrison.

Whenever rain falls, our countryside changes. Fields, farms, hills and hedgerows appear altered, the wildlife behaves differently, and over time the terrain itself is transformed.

In Rain, Melissa Harrison explores our relationship with the weather as she follows the course of four rain showers, in four seasons, across Wicken Fen, Shropshire, the Darent Valley and Dartmoor.

Blending these expeditions with reading, research, memory and imagination, she reveals how rain is not just an essential element of the world around us, but a key part of our own identity too.

Dimensions: 5 x 7.25 in / 128 pages

Softcover