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Binding: PaperbackEAN: 9781844130962 Edition: New Ed ISBN: 1844130967 Label: Pimlico Manufacturer: Pimlico Number Of Pages: 240 Publication Date: April 06, 2006 Publisher: Pimlico Release Date: April 06, 2006 Studio: Pimlico Related Items:
Average Rating:
 Rating: - Doesn't 'do what it says on the tin'I really wanted to love this book. Depression is a vile, destructive thing, and also something of a mystery, and any tale of its defeat should be both inspiring and informative. Add to this the location, the East Anglian countryside, this book looked (to me) irresistible. And then there were all the fulsome comments from national newspapers on the cover... However, in the end I was disappointed. I learnt little about depression, its causes and cures - or about the real inner life of the author. I got little sense of the horror of depression at the start, of an eventful and bumpy journey in the middle, of any interest in the psychological forces at work as we travelled, or of a real cure at the end. Behind a veil of lyricism, the author is really rather reticent. For example, part of his healing process came via a relationship, but we are offered no insight into this at all - no doubt tactful to the lady involved, but it makes dull reading. Of course, there are good things about this book. Mabey writes with poetry and elegance about the environment, and his love of nature shines through (`It was the kind of day that makes one feel like saying grace for a blade of grass'). Were it marketed as a series of essays on rural life, ecology etc., or just a literary diary of a year in rural East Anglia, it would be very pleasant. But it purports to be something more, and to me it does not deliver on this promise. Rating:  - A marmite - Love it or hate it!!There is no denying that Richard Mabey is a talented author and naturalist, so its no surprise that the combination of these two qualities produce a book that is both eloquent and imaginative, and will for some people be the epitome of what a thought-provoking 'nature book' should be. However I was first introduced to Nature Cure through Mabey's column in BBC Wildlife of the same name, and found it to be not only pessimistic but also somewhat dismissive of efforts to aid the natural world. So upon embarking on the book I was prepared for much more of the same, and I wasn't disappointed. From the word go Mabey seems intent on reminding us of what we have lost rather than what we still have and what it can do for us. Although he describes swift sightings and deer encounters with heart-warming enthusiasm, it is always followed by a lengthy account of how out of tune we have become with nature, or a depressing metaphor for mankind's fall from grace! Even the title is somewhat misleading. I expected the theme of Nature Cure to be a description of how the power of the natural world helped Mabey overcome depression. However it begins with Mabey already recovered, with barely a glimpse back into his life before recovery. As such the book meanders its way through what can only be described as a rather uneventful 'recuperation' period. Mabey's talent for describing natural events kept me interested enough to see it through to the end but it did become a chore and left me far from inspired. There are some people who will find the book wonderful. There are beautiful descriptions and evocative thoughts which will make the more romantic nature lover's day. But for the more practical wildlife enthusiasts (like me) who like to learn and experience, it was rather disappointing. For me Nature Cure was not an exhilarating literary venture in the way Mabey's Flora Britannica was, but it is something a little different, and for that reason is both refreshing and worth a try. Rating: - Ignore the title, just enjoy the contentsYou can imagine the scene. One of Britains most respected and brilliant nature writers having recovered from a bout of severe depression turns up for a meeting with his publishers with his latest work. "How are we going to market this book, Richard? What title shall we give it?" Nature Cure. But, despite the fact that this book is up to Richards usual high standard, there's precious little on how he came back from the brink and the part that reconnecting with nature played. And this is the real disappointment. Much has been done and written in the scientific community, for example by Professor Roger Ulrich amongst others, on the effects of exposure to the natural world on patients. But this is dry academic stuff and I was really hoping that someone with Richards power of prose could present a more cogent and lucid understanding of the role nature can play in restoring the mind. If that publishers conference had decided that this was really a book about upping sticks from your home in the Chilterns and moving to and re-discovering the East Anglian landscape then I expect it wouldn't have been so attractive or compelling even if it was more honest. So ignore the title, don't have too many expectations and just enjoy Richards evocative writing. I certainly did. Rating:  - Courageous and thought provokingI enjoyed this book immensely. The author's emotional and physical journey from one beloved and known landscape, through pain and loss, to the renewing strength of another quite different place, is expressed with courage and a disarming honesty that utterly convinces. I learnt much from the author's thought-provoking meditations on nature and even more about what it is to be human. Thank you Richard Mabey! Rating:  - DisappointingThe author is a repected naturalist and nature writer of long standing, so maybe I should have guessed in advance that this book would not quite offer what the title and blurb seemed (to me) to promise. I was hoping that this would be a story of the revelatory/restorative powers of discovering and/or reconnecting with nature, even if all that is meant by that is getting more in touch with the British countryside. What I read was instead a rather mundane account of one person's descent into depression and subsequent recovery, where that person just happened to have the rather agreeable job of spending all his time thinking and writing about the natural world, and reading (and citing, extensively) the works of other authors' accounts of nature in prose and in poetry. In a nutshell, this is an introspective autobiographical fragment that can reasonably be summarised as "bloke who spends all his time thinking and writing about nature gets depressed; spends some time being depressed; eventually stops being depressed and gets back into thinking and writing about nature" -- to me, it's really not a particularly compelling tale. If it had been "urban bloke who works in factory/office and spends no time in countryside gets depressed; discovers nature; is lifted from depression by new-found love of nature; finds new meaning to life, etc" then it would be; but as it is, the caricature/precis of this book can be shortened to "bloke has a job; bloke gets depressed and can't work; bloke gets better and goes back to old job". Oh, and he moves house too. The publicity for this book (see the Synopsis on Amazon) makes a deal of the fact that Mabey "...found the courage..." to move home from the Chilterns (where he had lived in the house of his parents from his birth right through to his middle-age) to East Anglia, where the countryside is a bit different. While reading this book, I found it hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr Mabey seems to live a somewhat other-worldly Gentleman Naturalist lifestyle of a type that I thought had fallen into extinction sometime in the first quarter of the 20th Century. Frankly, if you want to read a tale of courage, odds-overcome, and depression defeated, then there are countless much better ones than this. And if you want to read a book on the joys of nature/countryside/wilderness, there are also very many better books to choose from. So, I can't think who would benefit from being recommended this book. Maybe this would be interesting to someone who could be filled with wonder admiration and awe at the thought of a person moving their home from Chiltern countryside eastward by a couple of hundred miles to the flat fens of Norfolk and then noticing the differences; but maybe not.  Try searching the Internet for "Nature Cure" or Ebay for "Nature Cure". You might also be interested in the following great products:
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