A SOMERSET-BASED author is celebrating the county’s wildlife with his first book.

Phillip Edwards, who lives on the Somerset coast, has published ‘At the Very End of the Road’ trying to “render meticulous observation of the intimate details of wildlife and landscape” of the county.

This immersive and carefully crafted book of place explores the impact of season and tides and weather upon this land at the edge through a series of literary pictures crafted through lyrical imaginative language.

The author attempts what few, if any, have tried to do, namely to render meticulous observations of the intimate details of wildlife and landscape to depict a place as faithfully and transparently as possible.

This is a bold book, one that tries to capture the elusive soul of a place; a daring examination of both what makes a place and how it is remade daily through the interactions between landscape and observer.

Somerset County Gazette:

It is also radical for its approach challenges the current orthodoxy of nature writing that in order to supply a connection between author, subject, and reader, some sort of narrative framework of human emotion is required to provide it with a rationale.

So, although the prose is subjective, the book is framed in such a way as to remove the author's presence almost completely.

There is no story save that of the eternal change of the seasons, no narrative connection, no focus on a single species, no discussion or allusion to the environmental issues of our age, and no characters. Indeed, there is barely any mention of people at all.

Although it rarely tries to explain or educate, it simply places observations at centre stage.

Yet in trying to unearth what it is precisely that constructs our relationship with place, the author has, paradoxically, produced one of the most deeply personal and unusual nature books.

Phillip Edwards has lived in Somerset for twenty years.

He is a retired ornithological/ecological consultant who has worked on some of the world’s largest infrastructure projects as well as major conservation initiatives for organisations such as the United Nations, World Bank, and international NGOs.

He holds a doctorate from the Edward Grey Institute for Field Ornithology, Oxford University. He has travelled to 106 countries (including working in 43) and seen two-thirds of the world’s bird species.

He has also been a microlight pilot for 30 years and currently flies out of Westonzoyland.

‘At the End of the Road’ is his first book.

The book is available from the following websites, https://www.whittlespublishing.com/At_the_Very_End_of_the_Road and https://uk.bookshop.org/books/at-the-very-end-of-the-road/9781849954976?aid=687