In the last year of the old millennium, Richard Mabey, Britain'sforemost nature writer, fell into a severe depression. For two years,he did little more than lie in bed with his face to a wall. He could neither work nor play. His money ran out. Worst of all, the natural world - which since childhood had been a source of joy and inspiration for him - became meaningless. Then, cared for by friends, he gradually recovered. He fellin love. Out of necessity as much as choice he moved to East Anglia. And he started to write again. This remarkable book is an account of that first year of a new life. It is the story of a rite of passage -from sickness into health, from retreat into curiosity. It is about the adventure of learning to fit again. Having left the cosseting woods of the Chiltern hills for the open flatlands of Norfolk, Richard Mabey finds exhilaration in discovering a whole new landscape. He writes about the changing seasons in prose so exact andso beautiful that every sentence delights the reader. But Nature Cure is also alarger story. In finding his own niche, Richard Mabey gained insights into our human place in nature. He reflects on the inherent value of all creatures; on

Author Biography

Richard Mabey's ground-breaking bestseller, Flora Britannica,won the British Book Awards' Illustrated Book of the Year and the Botanical Society of the British Isles' President's Award, and was runner-up for the BP Natural World Book Prize. His previous books include Food for Free, The Unofficial Countryside and The Common Ground, as well as his intensely personal study of the nightingale, Whistling in the Dark. His biography of Gilbert White won the Whitbread Biography Award.