The wood: the life & times of Cockshutt Wood

This is the story of one wood, representative of all the small woods of our landscape and of the sanctuary they provide.

From January through to December, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons in exquisite, lyric prose, as the cuckoo flits through the green shade and in the silence and the wind of winter.

He explores from the roots of the oak to its tips, under the black, spicy leaf mould of the woodland floor and up into the mysterious canopy.

He offers a unique account of the animals that inhabit this refuge: the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice and the tawny owl, among others.

Their births, lives and deaths are stories that thread through the book from the first page to the last.