Tommy’s Book Recommendations

Wildlife in the Balance offers a new perspective, a sly glance from the side, an initial dose of cynicism and preparation to rethink what you may have learnt about concepts like natural selection, evolution, ecosystems and conservation. Things don’t quite work like you were taught at school or led to believe by decades of popular science.

🎧 Listen: 158: Wildlife In The Balance with Simon Mustoe

The polar bear, king of the Arctic, is one of the world’s most recognizable animals. Images of the majestic beasts roaming across the ice cap, plunging into frigid waters, and playing with furry cubs have come to symbolize the beauty and grandeur of the Arctic.

🎧 Listen: 159: Polar Bears in a Warming World with Andrew Derocher

In Emergent, Miriam McDonald explores the relationships that bind our world together. It is by reintegrating lost species with historic ranges that rewilding reignites the miraculous dance of life across landscapes. It is through reforming severed relationships that regenerative farmers build soil, produce nutrient-dense food and foster a renewed sense of kinship and community.

🎧 Listen: 143: Emergent with Miriam Kate McDonald

You don’t have to be an animal rights activist to take an interest in how we treat other creatures. All of us are complicit because all of us, with few exceptions, use animals in some way. How we define ‘use’ or exploitation should be broad: everything from enjoying a steak or poached eggs, to riding a horse, to keeping a cat as a pet. Animal use is so deeply engrained in our daily lives that we barely notice it.

🎧 Listen: 142: Treated Like Animals with Alick Simmons

In this beautiful and thought-provoking blend of nature and travel writing Patrick Galbraith sets off across Britain on a journey that may well be his last chance to see some of our disappearing birds. Along the way, from Orkney to West Wales, from the wildest places to post-industrial towns, he meets a fascinatingly eclectic group of people who in very different ways are on the front line of conservation, tirelessly doing everything they can to save ten species teetering dangerously close to extinction.

🎧 Listen: 129: In Search of One Last Song with Patrick Galbraith

Time outdoors is always well spent. It raises the spirits, sparks the imagination and, as research increasingly shows, measurably improves our physical and mental wellbeing. Rhythms of Nature celebrates this fundamental relationship with the natural world, and considers some ways we might rediscover it.

🎧 Listen: 128: Rhythms of Nature with Ian Carter

Lake Victoria was once one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, but a predator released into its waters by East Africa’s British colonisers has left a trail of destruction in its wake. The lives of millions of people have been upended, as a fateful confluence of overfishing, pollution and deforestation has triggered one of history’s greatest mass extinctions.

🎧 Listen: 126: The Saviour Fish with Mark Weston

Waking to her husband’s alarmed whisper, “Honey, get ready to run” was never in Sue Tidwell’s vision of Africa. Nor was skulking through snake-infested terrain or lying terror-stricken as the cries of lions and hyenas cut through the walls of her tent. Tidwell, a non-hunter deeply troubled by the concept of hunting Africa’s iconic wildlife, finds herself a reluctant sidekick on an epic 21-day big game hunting safari deep in the wilds of Tanzania

🎧 Listen: Episode 121: Cries of the Savanna with Sue Tidwell · 📖 Read: Cries of the Savanna by Sue Tidwell – A Book Review