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Hidden Nature

A powerful memoir of exploration and self-discovery

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About this listen

 Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart.

Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it. What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world with the same care?

Beautifully written, honest and very moving, Hidden Nature is also the story of Alys Fowler's emotional journey: above all, this book is about losing and finding, exploring familiar places and discovering unknown horizons.

(P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2017 Alys Fowler Europe Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Travel Writing & Commentary Western Europe Sports Boating Sailing

Critic reviews

"I felt as if I'd paddled into a new country." The gardening author and Guardian columnist with a distinctive memoir in which she forsakes her garden and takes to paddling Birmingham's little-used canal network in an inflatable kayak. The time and space she allows herself for nature observation--kingfishers, waterlilies, pikes, freshwater mussels and blackberries are all beautifully reflected on--is mirrored by her exploration of her internal self, particularly in the light of leaving her marriage and coming out as gay. An enchanting book which somehow manages to be both gutsy and delightfully soothing.
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Far too much about Alys's 'coming out' for me. I have no problems with people of different sexualities but it isn't my chosen listening material.
I suspect she wrote the book simply as a means of explaining her struggles and threw in the wildlife bits after. The wildlife bits are limited to what lives in and around UK canals.
For all that it wasn't a bad 'listen' and helped relieve the boredom of decorating!

NOT WHAT I EXPECTED

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Cleverly written. Honest and humble. Wonderful use of metaphors and images describing the nature outside to point towards the turmoil inside. Very helpful for someone on a similar journey . Thank you. r

Very cleverly written.

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Absolutely loved this. I felt like I was there learning alongside alys about the history of nature are different areas. Really honest and open about her personal journey in relationships and coming out. Loved every minute!

A journey of self discovery and nature

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I just love this book, in essence about the author's discovery of the Birmingham canal network and subsequent journeys of self-discovery and of nature, heritage and friendship at a time of personal upheaval and change. It's packed with Alys Fowler's expansive knowledge of plants and ecology but also of a shared learning experience about the city and its liminal spaces that nature has permeated in so many ways. It's a book about gradually revealing what is hidden and in celebrating the widest range of emotions and experiences, both in our own nature and in our environments, From encountering everything from eels to mosses, with plenty of tales of love, friendship and loss, this book has just entranced me. It left me thinking of all the ways the places I have inhabited and the natural world I have encountered have been spaces for processing, solitude, connection and grounding.

A moving story of discovery on Birmingham's canals

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I adored this book by Alys Fowler - I have been a fan of Ayls' other books and tv shows about gardening, so was really looking forward to this. Although I was initially disappointed that it wasn't narrated by Alys herself, the narrator has the same tone and way of speaking as Alys I think, and it is read beautifully. This is a story abut Alys' journey through kayaking the canals of Birmingham, and her personal journey of coming out and re-finding herself. As a newbie Kayaker and out lesbian, Alys takes us gently through the ups and downs of her journeys, with lots of little insights to the things in nature that she comes across on the canals. I shed a small tear at the end, which goes to show how this book touches you gently with its charm.

Utterly charming, food for the soul

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