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Sign up todayHow to Catch a Mole
And Find Yourself in Nature
Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Narrator
Marc Hamer
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Length
3 hours 43 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“I loved this strange, powerful little book. It is kind of about mole catching but really about the author’s perspectives on nature and the world after a life spent living and working outdoors. But this isn’t your everyday nature writing, Marc Hammer has a unique view on the world and a talent for sharing it. ”
— Josh • Underground Books
Random House presents the audiobook edition of How to Catch a Mole written and read by Marc Hamer.
A life-affirming book about the British countryside, the cycle of nature, solitude, mortality and contentment, through the prism of a brilliant new nature writer’s experience working as a traditional mole-catcher.
I have been catching moles in gardens and farms for years and I have decided that I am not going to do it any more. Molecatching is a traditional skill that has given me a good life but I am old now and tired of hunting and it has taught me what I needed to learn.
Although common, moles are mysterious: their habits are inscrutable, they are anatomically bizarre, and they live completely alone. Marc Hamer has come closer to them than most, both through his long working life out in the Welsh countryside, and his experiences of rural homelessness as a boy, sleeping in hedgerows.
Over the years, Marc has learned a great deal about these small, velvet creatures who live in the dark beneath us, and the myths that surround them, and his work has also led him to a wise and uplifting acceptance of the inevitable changes that we all face. In this beautiful and meditative book, Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment.
How to Catch a Mole is a gem of nature writing, beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, which celebrates living peacefully and finding wonder in the world around us.
Marc Hamer (Author, Reader)
Marc Hamer was born in the North of England and moved to Wales over thirty years ago. After spending a period homeless, then working on the railway, he returned to education and studied fine art in Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. He has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design and taught creative writing in a prison before becoming a gardener. Both his books, A Life in Nature; or How to Catch a Mole and Seed to Dust have been longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.
Marc Hamer (Author, Reader)
Marc Hamer was born in the North of England and moved to Wales over thirty years ago. After spending a period homeless, then working on the railway, he returned to education and studied fine art in Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. He has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design and taught creative writing in a prison before becoming a gardener. Both his books, A Life in Nature; or How to Catch a Mole and Seed to Dust have been longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.
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Audiobook details
Author:
Marc Hamer
Narrator:
Marc Hamer
ISBN:
9781473569652
Length:
3 hours 43 minutes
Language:
English
Publisher:
Random House
Publication date:
April 4, 2019
Edition:
Unabridged
Reviews
From the first few words I knew I had encountered loving honesty and no one needs more than that. It is rare to encounter such respect and understanding of nature for herself. How To Catch A Mole is a beguiling mixture: part autobiography, part handbook, part travel book, part philosophical treatise. I’m happy to report that it succeeds on each level Not only a compelling meditation on the 'little gentleman in black velvet'…but also a fascinating, lyrical account of the loneliness and beauty of life on the margins, a memoir of vagrancy This is a wonderful book about our relationship with the earth, with other animals and with our own troubled humanity. It has taught me a lot. I feel great love for it. How to Catch a Mole is a beautiful, elegiac ode to a remarkable creature. It’s also an exploration of Hamer’s life as he approaches his sunset years. Each page is filled with wonder, love, regret, humility and a sense of wonder (and oneness) with nature. [How To Catch a Mole] has the feel of an enduring classic. It is the testament of a man who has learnt to see, who has the nerve to interrogate his own annihilation and who…handles language superbly Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment. [Hamer] offers us some heart-rending images which linger in the mind long after you’ve closed the book Marc Hamer's uplifting writings shed some light on the velvety creatures burrowing beneath our countryside.Marc Hamer's wonderful How To Catch A Mole took me completely by surprise. It certainly is a book about
catching moles but it is also a book of sound philosophy, poignant biography and a zen-like meditation on life and nature. Brilliant.
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