Swamp Songs

Reviews

Bracingly original ... Blass reveals himself to be more ethnologist than naturalist. While he pays respectful attention to the fauna that he encounters as he tacks from the Romney Marshes to Louisiana’s bayous by way of the Danube delta, it is the people he is after. A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches Enriching and magical, Tom Blass's writing is a pleasure to read. What a joy to roam with Tom Blass through some of nature’s most unjustly maligned and underappreciated habitats, where webs of life interconnect wildly and wondrously with human stories. Swamp Songs is a delicious blend of ecology and culture. PRAISE FOR THE NAKED SHORE: A wonderfully bracing journey around the North Sea. His gaze misses nothing, and his robust prose glitters with story and lore and surprise A hugely enjoyable anti-tour, and a wonderful eulogy to an implacable ocean Tom Blass champions a subtlety of vision, a determination to discern the marvellous in the unprepossessing Remarkable ... I was relieved to find that his work is not of the trendy Thoreau-esque school of travel writing, but more down to earth ... Terrifically enjoyable Captivating … Rich, evocative prose … Part travelogue, part history book and part anthropological study, Blass’s intensely rewarding memoir succeeds in scattering some light into the North Sea’s cold and murky depths, revealing both its wonders and its indivisible relationship with humanity So extremely good that we hope it will bring a warmth and richness to your early spring reading. That said, you’ll probably want to dive into this fabulous account somewhere indoors rather than settling down on a blustery beach Expand reviews