The Nature of Summer

Jim Crumley

Jim Crumley is the author of more than forty books, mostly on the wildlife and wild landscape of his native Scotland, many of them making the case for species reintroductions, or ‘rewilding’. His Seasons series, a quartet of books exploring the wildlife and landscapes and how climate change is affecting our environment across the four seasons, is highly acclaimed.  The Nature of Autumn was longlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017 and shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017. The third in the series, The Nature of Spring, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week. The Nature of Summer, was shortlisted for the 2021 Highland Book Prize.  The Eagle’s Way was shortlisted for a prestigious Saltire Society award, and his Encounters in the Wild series – which sees Jim get up close and personal with Britain’s favourite animals – has found him many new readers. He has written about the return of the beaver to the UK’s wetlands in Nature’s Architect, and his most recent title is Lakeland Wild, his first to focus entirely on an English landscape. Lakeland Wild was longlisted for the 2022 Lakeland Book of the Year prize. Jim is also a poet, an occasional broadcaster on both radio and television and a widely published journalist who wrote columns for the Dundee Courier for many years and has a monthly column in The Scots Magazine.

The Seasons quartet is now available in one handsome hardback edition, Seasons of Storm and Wonder.

The Nature of Summer

by Jim Crumley

  • RRP: £12.99 (print) / £6.99 (ebook)
  • Format: Hardback
  • ISBN: 9781912235728
  • Ebook ISBN: 9781912235735

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SHORTLISTED: Highland Book Prize

Larks cling to their slender columns of song held aloft on warm summer winds a dozen to an acre … 

In the abiding light of summer, the nature in Jim Crumley’s heartlands of Scotland is burgeoning freely. Seals sing, brown hares bound, dragonflies dance. His silent vigils reveal not only an enchanting account of summer’s exuberant profusion, but the unfolding climate chaos. From declining puffin populations to the demise of entire glaciers, this is a world in crisis … and of everyday miracles on land, mountains, lochs, coasts and skies. 

Jim Crumley’s intimate portraits branch out beyond the heart of the Highlands to memories of summers past: from kittiwake cliffs in far-flung St Kilda to the pure wilderness of Arctic Norway, where sea eagles rule. The Nature of Summer explores what is at stake as our seasons are pushed beyond nature’s limits. 

Prizes and awards

SHORTLISTED: Highland Book Prize

REVIEWS OF The Nature of Summer

“Scotland’s foremost living nature writer” Dundee Courier

“The very essence of nature writing in Scotland today … poetically meditative, moving … a powerful message.” Dundee Courier, Book of the Week.

“A mesmerising blend of observation and in-depth knowledge about our wild landscapes … every bit as compelling and thought-provoking as its predecessors ... no better book to lose yourself in.” Herald

"This is a work of pure escapism as the throb of spring gives way to the reflective calm of our warmest months. Crumley’s writing effortlessly captures the majesty of a golden eagle eyrie, the magic of beavers returning to their old habitats, and the joy that arrives with a flock of whooper swans overhead … The perfect finale to this evocative seasonal collection" Tiffany Francis-Baker, BBC Wildlife Magazine

“[A] beautiful book … [an] exceptional and intense quality of observation glows from every page … He finds astonishing beauty in the landscape, and sheer wonder in his encounters … Nothing can diminish the sharpness of his eye, the ardour of his writing, and the pure wonder at the natural world that shapes every paragraph … A wisdom that we need now, more than ever before.” Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman