We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Although I had a few books published in July on my NetGalley TBR already, I couldn’t resist requesting this one, as it was described thus: “Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian-Australian-American making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines”.

Through his journeys to understand the lives of four "unloved" animals, Michael Malay pays a debt of deep respect to the Earth and its interconnectedness. Malay’s prose is gorgeous and astute; he looks with fresh eyes at unpopular species and finds poetry and meaning.Its a thoughtfully written and at times quite personal memoir about someone who becomes fascinated by 'uncharismatic' animals that are threatened by the spectre and ongoing reality of extinction and ecological collapse - we follow them on their investigations and encounters with these creatures and the people who care for them, as they draw parallels and insights that are related back to the chapter themes. That’s a fascinating set of parallels he seems to draw, and I do love the idea of focusing on creatures often neglected (Blyton in Adventures of Pip chose to highlight smaller animals and insects which I loved too). Late Light is the story of Michael Malay's own journey, an Indonesian-Australian-American making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines.

For fans of Robert Macfarlane, Raynor Winn and Helen Macdonald, Late Light is a rich blend of memoir, natural history, nature writing, and a meditation on being and belonging, from a vibrant new voice. Worth saying as well, despite how I may have made it sound, this book is eminently readable, and despite the subject matter it's also by no means a depressing read - a little melancholy perhaps, but after reading it I felt more ready to engage with these issues than I have for several months. It is mostly set around Bristol and the South West, which makes it of additional interest if you are local.His creative writing has been widely published, including in Little Toller's online magazine The Clearing (of which he was also a co-editor), The Willowherb Review and Dark Mountain. So then he looks at eels, moths, mussels and crickets, speaking to experts, going on field trips, sometimes alone sometimes with a friend, becoming addicted to each creature in turn. Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. For where is the essential difference between human lives ground down by economic austerity and homelessness, and animal lives marginalised into extinction by disappearing habitats and poisoned water? During that first year, I also began filling notebooks with words gleaned from books and friends, terms like ‘heath’, ‘upland’ and ‘fen’, or ‘furze’, ‘hart’s tongue’ and ‘goosegrass’, or ‘Icknield Way’ and ‘Fosse Way’.

Recounting how his moves across countries often left him feeling like a migratory bird himself, his utter joy and passion for the natural world is stunningly rendered in this book. Most nature books claim to make the world feel bigger and more precious, but Late Light really does. When Michael Malay came to England at twenty-one, he was enchanted by the green and pleasant land he had read so much about. Coming to the West Country of England via Indonesia and Australia, Malay gives a newcomer’s view of the British countryside, writing with precision, fascination and humour, picking out tiny details that a local might not even notice thanks to familiarity.There are fascinating points about land that is reclaimed by nature that fits in with the rewilding books I’ve been reading, but going deeper into smaller areas again. From these ostensibly discrete threads is woven a large, heartbreakingly resonant story: for Malay is interested above all in connectedness — in what these species tell us about the pasts and possible futures of the great world that pulses around us, and what their loss will mean for the other animals, including humans, who have evolved alongside them. Michael teaches at the University of Bristol, and this book explores the natural landscape in and around the city from the Mendips to Troopers Hill. Amy Liptrot, The Outrun This is a book about falling in love with vanishing things Late Light is the story of Michael Malay's own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. With presences, and with danger: for the enfeebled environment that dooms so many species will inevitably doom us too; there is, in the end, no escape.

Malay’s version of nature writing, indeed, is thronged with other presences — not for him the windswept, empty uplands so memorably described by Kathleen Jamie as the haunt of the “lone, enraptured male”.It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold for our children.