When the pioneering naturalist Gilbert White wrote "The Natural History of Selborne" (1789), he created one of the greatest and most influential natural history works of all time. This work tells the wonderful story of the clergyman - England's first ecolo

During the early 1970s Richard Mabey explored crumbling city docks and overgrown bomb-sites, navigated inner city canals and car parks, and discovered there was scarcely a nook in our urban landscape incapable of supporting life. The Unofficial Countryside is a timely reminder of how nature flourishes against the odds, surviving in the most obscure and surprising places.

Richard Mabey's descent into clinical depression was so annihilating that he could neither work nor play, nor sustain relationships with family or friends. He was drinking too much, taking too many pills - and worst of all had lost pleasure in the outside world. This remarkable work charts his gradual return to joyfulness.

From ash die-back to the Great Storm of 1987 to Dutch elm disease, our much-loved woodlands seem to be under constant threat from a procession of natural challenges. Just when we need trees most, to help combat global warming and to provide places of retreat for us and our wildlife, they seem at greatest peril. But these dangers force us to reconsider the narrative we construct about trees and the roles we press on them. In this now classic book, Richard Mabey looks at how for more than a thousand years we have appropriated and humanised trees, turning them into arboreal pets, status symbols,...

Ever since the first human settlements 10,000 years ago, weeds have dogged our footsteps. They are there as the punishment of 'thorns and thistles' in "Genesis" and, two millennia later, as a symbol of "Flanders Field". The author examines how we have tried to define them, explain their persistence, and draw moral lessons from them.

Described as Britain's foremost nature writer, Richard Mabey has revealed his passion for the natural world in elegantly written stories for 'BBC Wildlife Magazine' for the past 25 years. This collection brings together his favourite pieces and presents a fascinating and inspiring view of our natural landscape.

In his trademark style, Richard Mabey weaves together science, art and memoirs (including his own) to show the weather's impact on our culture and national psyche. He rambles through the myths of Golden Summers and our persistent state of denial about the winter; the Impressionists' love affair with London smog, seasonal affective disorder (SAD - do we all get it?) and the mysteries of storm migraines; herrings falling like hail in Norfolk and Saharan dust reddening south-coast cars; moonbows, dog-suns, fog-mirages and Constable's clouds; the fact that English has more words for rain than...