- Published: 15 June 2015
- ISBN: 9780099571933
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 320
- RRP: $24.00
The Hunt for the Golden Mole
All Creatures Great and Small, and Why They Matter
- Published: 15 June 2015
- ISBN: 9780099571933
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 320
- RRP: $24.00
That rarest of delights: a roaring book of huge importance written by a master storyteller exploring our fragile relationship with the animal kingdom, offering insights into how a hopeful future could yet be snatched from the jaws of despair. Not a hint of preaching, not a whiff of worthiness. A great story written not by an idealist but by a pragmatist with a heart of gold with a clear eyed view of the world.
Tim Smit
I loved this book. This is natural history at its funniest, most curious, enlightening and heartfelt. I couldn’t put it down. It was like going on safari with Gerald Durrell, Rachel Carson and Redmond O’ Hanlon … I was alternately wide-eyed with wonder, appalled and then tickled to laughter. It’s beautifully written. And it’s powerful. An elegy to every living thing on this remarkable planet. Impossible to finish without being uplifted by the wonder of the natural world and driven to do something about its plight.
Nicholas Crane, writer and co-presenter of Coast
This book is a sobering, riveting read: part quest, part travelogue, part scientific debate and part much-needed environmental call-to-arms
Sarah Barrell, National Geographic Traveller
The Hunt for the Golden Mole is a wonderful book. At one level it is a detective story in which Richard Girling is on the hunt for a very rare creature. But it is much more than that: an understated but passionate advocacy for the biodiversity of the planet which combines lightly worn scholarship with a compelling argument. Overall it is a tour de force
Jonathan Dimbleby
An informed and informative, provocative and rousing work
Caspar Henderson, Sunday Telegraph
Delightfully written and a splendid romp through one man’s mole-hunting search among the wilds of animal taxonomy
Daily Express
Fascinating
New Internationalist
At the heart of this delightfully meandering book is a history of how we find and catalogue species, and a thought-provoking examination of our changing attitudes to wildlife
BBC Focus
This is a book that bursts into life from the first page… Rousing, fascinating… Utterly engaging
Camilla Cavendish, Sunday Times
Elegiac and personal… Highly recommended
Henry Nicholls, BBC Wildlife
A stirring tribute to the marvel of all living creatures
Sunday Times Summer Reading
A gloriously readable, boundlessly fascinating shaggy dog story about the author's quest for one of hte world's more recently extinct species...what makes this book so wonderful: using his eye for detail, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, teaching you to care about the little things.
James Delingpole, Mail on Sunday
Entertaining and provocative
Robin McKie, Observer
Exciting, breathless
Kate Saunders, Saga Magazine
[Girling] writes with verve and passion and he makes his case persuasively, with knowledge, enthusiasm and commitment… Brimful with facts and arguments
UK Press Syndication
A thought-provoking study
Julia Richardson, Daily Mail
A delight to read
4 stars, Independent On Sunday