Bridget Jones's Diary
Once There Were Wolves

Wilding

An inspiring story about what happens when 3,500 acres of land, farmed for centuries, is left to return to the wild, and about the wilder, richer future a natural landscape can bring.

For years Charlie Burrell and his wife, Isabella Tree, farmed Knepp Castle Estate and struggled to turn a profit. By 2000, with the farm facing bankruptcy, they decided to try something radical. They would restore Knepp’s 3,500 acres to the wild. Using herds of free-roaming animals to mimic the actions of the megafauna of the past, they hoped to bring nature back to their depleted land. But what would the neighbors say, in the manicured countryside of modern England where a blade of grass out of place is considered an affront?

In the face of considerable opposition the couple persisted with their experiment and soon witnessed an extraordinary change. New life flooded into Knepp, now a breeding hotspot for rare and threatened species like turtle doves, peregrine falcons, and purple emperor butterflies.

The fabled English nightingale sings again.

At a time of looming environmental disaster, Wilding is an inspiring story of a farm, a couple, and a community transformed. Isabella Tree’s wonderful book brings together science, natural history, a fair bit of drama, and—ultimately—hope.

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • Riley's poetry captures the essence of rural American life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his works continue to be studied and recited to this day.

  • “Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales. In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where [...]

  • In this affecting narrative, a defining masterpiece by the "dean of Western writers" (The New York Times), Wallace Stegner portrays more than three decades in the life of the Mason family as they struggle to survive during the lean years of the early twentieth century.

  • The Blacker the Berry (1929), Wallace Thurman’s debut novel, broke new ground as an exploration of issues of “colorism,” intra-racial prejudice, and internalized racism in African American life.