Swift: An Epic Story of a Small Bird’s Courage by Lorna Hill is a beautiful and inspiring children’s book that follows the journey of a small bird named Swift. The few-page run-on sentence about how humanity has gotten itself into the climate crisis is pretty great (though Lev Parikian did so much more concisely in Into the Tangled Bank: It’s “f***ing f***ed”).

He brings to this vast subject a scientist's rigour and a poet's expansive vision -- Philip Marsden * Spectator * A beautiful, brilliant, mind-stretching and soul-flying book. After all, they have much in common: both feed on ying insects, both breed around buildings, and both are long-distance migrants that spend winter in Africa. So many dedicated swift people it is inspiring if (like most natural history/environmental books) a little depressing at times. This is admittedly a murder mystery, and it’s possible that I’m just out of the loop, but there was a bit more, well, murder than I expected. Full of zany characters and scintillating wordplay, this children’s mystery is as enjoyable for adults as it is for the young readers in its target audience.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. The latest calculation is that it has dropped by some 62% in the last 25 years so it is certainly a candidate to be added to the red list next time the list is reassessed. Sarah Gibson has written a fascinating story of discovery, exploring what is known about these mysterious birds, their ancient ancestry and how they have been regarded through history. When I finally clap eyes on them, they’re promoted from the filing cabinet to a special place in my heart.

Sarah Gibson worked in the conservation sector for over twenty years, soaking up knowledge of nature in all its wondrous variety.Take, for example, an early chapter where she gets out her giant bird book and drearily works her way through each of the swift families, what they look like, where they live, drone drone drone. I started reading two e-books on the same day that had Taylor Swift lyrics as an epigraph: Bad Vibes Only by Nora McInerny and Tracy Flick Can’t Win by Tom Perrotta. This is the second year that there have been two awards, one for writing on UK nature and the other on global conservation themes. She and her daughters concentrate on saving the places where Swifts nest and rehabilitation of baby Swifts that fall from the nest. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

And soon we’ll also have Mark Cocker’s book about swifts, One Midsummer’s Day, which I hope to get hold of.She also takes us through a typical summer swift schedule, and interviews some people who rehabilitate and advocate for swifts. There’s a time and place for the former, but I’m never there anymore and with my limited time I want to read books that I enjoy, not books that I would enjoy if I were still ten. Admittedly I”m skeptical of BN’s picks these days, but since the kids’ and YA books tend to be decent, I gave it a try. Here he applied the same pattern across the pond, taking an 11,000-mile road trip around Britain with his wife Nellie. For the most part, the bird life is completely new to them, but he remarks on what North American species the European birds remind him of.

Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour: As an aimless twentysomething, Gilmour tried to rekindle a relationship with his unreliable poet father at the same time that he and his wife were pondering starting a family of their own.There’s a minor subplot about Erf’s grandmother insisting on using their Dictionary name, but it’s handled really well.