RaveFinancial Times (UK)... the owl’s presence can be felt throughout the book, thanks to some evocative writing by Slaght ... his book is as much a portrait of those who live alongside the Blakiston’s fish owl as it is of the owl itself ... These histories are delicately woven into Owls of the Eastern Ice, as Slaght and his team criss-cross Primorye and are given food and shelter by larger-than-life personalities who could feel like caricatures in another writer’s hands ... an engrossing and compelling debut from Slaght, and a rich account of the challenges that conservationists must sometimes overcome in order to learn about and protect a species.
Merlin Sheldrake
RaveThe Spectator (UK)The lives of fungi alone are fascinating, but the questions and wider implications that Sheldrake teases out from them are often truly astounding ... an engrossing, captivating journey into the usually hidden lives of fungi. It would be an impressive offering on the subject by a mycologist at the end of their career; and yet, impressively, Sheldrake is only 32 years old. This is a rigorous, comprehensive, perspective-altering debut by a young author who, if this book is any indication, has an exciting career in not only science but also literature ahead of him.
Callum Roberts
RaveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)... it is the many passages that celebrate the profound beauty and biodiversity of coral reefs that make the most compelling argument for change ... Roberts has a gift for capturing the personalities and characteristics of the creatures he encounters ... Roberts writes beautifully of the experience of descending into the depths ... Reef Life is the account of a career, but at times it also feels like a love letter—or a farewell—to an ecosystem that is vanishing fast.
