Mark Cocker

Archipelago is one of the most important and influential literary magazines of the last twenty years. Running to twelve editions, it was edited by Andrew McNeillie, with the assistance later of James McDonald Lockhart, and began as an attempt to reimagine the relationships between the islands of Ireland and Britain. Archipelago has brought together established and emerging artists in creative conversations that have transformed the study of islands, coasts and waterways. It journeys from the Shetlands to Cornwall, from the Aran Islands to the coast of Yorkshire, tracing the cultures of diverse zones through some of the best in contemporary writing about place and people. This collection gathers poetry, prose and visual art in clusters grouped around the Irish and British archipelago, with contributions from an array of significant artists. It includes newly commissioned work as well as an interview between Andrew McNeillie and Robert Macfarlane on the development of Archipelago across the years.

What does it mean to truly see the natural world? The Nature of Seeing is a celebration of the art and practice of paying close attention. Whether it is the sight of moonlight across a bedroom floor, or an owl as it hunts, or waxcap fungi that bulb up across the fields overnight - Mark Cocker encourages us to reclaim our innate gift for wonder and to see the living world in all its infinite detail and mystery. Through a series of diary entries describing his encounters with the natural world, he interrogates how we see and how it affects us at the most profound levels. In precise and lyrical prose, he shows us that seeing is a creative act that can both transform us and change the very world we share. Revelatory and profound, The Nature of Seeing is the culmination of a lifetime's love affair with the simple act of looking and all that it reveals.

It takes a whole universe to make one small black birdThe bestselling author of Crow Country and writer of The Guardian's Country Diary tells the story of all life on Earth through a single day spent in the company of swifts.'A jewel of a book' Caroline Lucas MPSwifts are among the most extraordinary of all birds. Their migrations span continents and their twelve-week stopover, when they pause to breed in European rooftops, is the very definition of summer. They may nest in our homes but much about their lives passes over our heads. No birds are more wreathed in mystery. Captivated, Mark Cocker sets out to capture their essence.Over the course of one day in midsummer he devotes himself to his beloved black birds as they spiral overhead. Yet this is also a book about so much more. Swifts are a prism through which Cocker explores the profound interconnections of the whole biosphere.From the deep-sea thermal vents where life was born to the 15 million degrees at the core of our Sun, he shows that life is a singular and glorious continuum. These birds without borders are a perfect symbol to express the unity of the living planet. But they also illuminate how no creature, least of all ourselves, can be said to be alive in isolation. We are all inextricably connected.Drawing deeply on science, history, literature and a lifetime of close observation, One Midsummer's Day is a dazzling and wide-ranging celebration of all life on Earth by one of our greatest nature writers.'A nature classic for the new century' Jim Perrin, author of Snowdon

Another beautiful, revelatory country diary from one of the best nature writers in Britain.'If you’ve never read Mark Cocker, then you must. His style is sharp, selfless, and wonderfully evocative, his knowledge deep and wide-ranging but lightly borne, his curiosity joyful and infectious.' Mail On Sunday, Books of the YearFor seventeen years, as part of his daily writerly routine, the author and naturalist Mark Cocker has taken a two-mile walk down to the river from his cottage on the edge of the Norfolk Broads National Park. Over the course of those 10,000 daily paces he has learnt the art of patience to observe a butterfly, a bird, flower, bee, deer, otter or fly and to take pleasure in all the other inhabitants of his parish, no matter how seemingly insignificant. In turn these encounters have then been converted into literary epiphanies that are now a widely celebrated part of his work. In A Claxton Diary he has gathered some of the finest short essays that he has ever written on wildlife. They range over almost everything he can see, touch or smell, from the minute to the cosmic, from a strange micromoth called yellow-barred longhorn to that fiercest of winter storms the so-called ‘Beast from the East’.From the marvellous to the macabre, Cocker tries to capture nature without flinching and in its entirety. In so doing he provides us with a vision of an English country parish that for intimacy and precise detail is comparable with Gilbert White’s diary on Selbourne. Above all he reminds us that we are all just members of one miraculous family, fashioned from sunlight and the dust from old stars.

Birds are inextricably entwined with British lifeBritish customs, more than 1,000 years of English literature and even the landscape itself, have all been enhanced by the presence of birds. This superb book pays tribute to the remarkable relationship forged between a nation and its most treasured national heritage. Birds Britannica concentrates on our social history and on the cultural links between humans and birds.What makes Birds Britannica special is the inclusion of observations and experiences from more than 1,000 naturalists and bird lovers. These contributions from the public touch on avian ecology; the lore and language of birds; their myths, the art and literature they have inspired; birds as food; and the crucial role they play in our sense of place and the changing seasons.No other book has dealt so completely with the rich connections between birds and humans; Birds Britannica captures the very essence of that relationship and explores why birds matter and why we care.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN MACDONALD, SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF H IS FOR HAWK

Hinterland is a quarterly, print and digital magazine dedicated to creative non-fiction. Hinterland's fourth issue celebrates the art of a beautifully turned piece of flash writing, with our Flash Non-Fiction Special: 40 pages of the best bite-sized writing around. Mark Cocker leads with a piece on the army ant, others consider topics as varied as migrant youth, New York through the decades, the troubling life of pets, inter-racial relationships, and the fall of dictators. Inside a stunning cover, created exclusively for Hinterland by artist Mia Hague, is an outstanding line-up of new creative non-fiction plus all our great regular features, including a beautiful photo essay by Lily Bungay and an interview with Tessa McWatt.

'Essential reading for anybody who cares about the future’ Henry Marsh, *New Statesman Books of the Year*A radical examination of Britain's relationship with the land by one of our greatest nature writers.**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT GOLDEN BEER BOOK PRIZE 2019**The British love their countryside more than almost any other nation, yet they live in one of the most denatured landscapes on Earth. From the flatlands of Norfolk to the tundra-like expanse of the Flow Country in northern Scotland, Mark Cocker sets out on a personal quest through the British countryside attempting to solve this puzzle. Radical, provocative and original, Our Place tackles some of the central issues of our time whilst mapping out a future in which this overcrowded island of ours could be a place fit not just for human occupants but also for its billions of wild citizens.‘A tour de force… By turns hopeful, melancholy, humorous and heartfelt’ BBC Wildlife Book of the Month

'After Mark Cocker�s glorious book, you will never look at a blackberry bush the same way again.' Philip Hoare, New Statesman In 2001 Mark Cocker moved to Claxton, a small village in Norfolk.

One night Mark Cocker followed the roiling, deafening flock of rooks and jackdaws which regularly passed over his Norfolk home on their way to roost in the Yare valley.

Vad är det som lockar människor världen över att ägna sig åt fåglar? Under de senaste femtio åren har fågelskådningen vuxit till ett intresse för tiotusentals entusiaster, från att ha varit en exklusiv hobby för några få specialister. Trots mängden engagerade uppfattas skådarna ofta som ett släkte för sig, och utomstående kan ha svårt att fatta att folk faktiskt är beredda att köra över hela landet för att få se en ovanlig fågel, eller resa till avlägsna öar och regnskogar för att öka sin lista över antalet arter de sett under sitt liv. I Skådare - ett släkte för sig ger sig Mark Cocker i kast med att beskriva vad man kan kalla skådarsamhället, dess historia, oskrivna regler och psykologi. Han redogör för ornitologins grundbegrepp och för framväxten av fältornitologin som en världsomspännande fritidssyssla. Med en blandning av självbiografi, historieskrivning och anekdotsamling har Mark Cocker åstadkommit en av de bästa och mest underhållande böcker som finns om fågelskådning och dess märkliga dragningskraft.

Since 1972 Mark Cocker has been a member of a community of obsessional people, almost all male, who sacrifice most of their spare time, a good deal of money, sometimes their chances of a partner or family, even occasionally their lives, to watch birds.

The past five centuries have witnessed a shocking series of confrontations between European nations and millions of indigenous peoples, and these cultural encounters still resonate strongly to this day. Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold is an essential book for understanding the true impact of imperialism. Beautifully and passionately written, it provides a judicious and exhaustively researched indictment of European exploitation. Focusing on four collisions between Europeans and indigenous cultures--the conquest of Mexico, the British onslaught on the Tasmanian Aborigines, the uprooting of the Apaches, and the German campaign against the tribes of Southwest Africa--Mark Cocker illuminates the fundamental experiences that underlay the colonial experience around the globe. Beyond making a persuasive--and balanced--case against colonialism, Cocker also sustains a riveting, often harrowing story. Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold is narrative history in its most impressive form--engaging, accessible, and thought provoking.