In this conservation classic, originally published more than sixty years ago, Fred Bodsworth tells the story of a solitary Eskimo curlew's perilous migration and search for a mate. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a species on the brink of extinction, and for all in nature that is endangered. This new paperback edition includes a foreword by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet W.S. Merwin and an afterword by Nobel Prize–winning physicist Murray Gell–Mann.

‘Focuses a razor light on the plight of one of our most iconic birds. Inspirational!’ Tim Birkhead Curlews are Britain’s largest wading bird, known for their evocative calls which embody wild places; they provoke a range of emotions that many have expressed in poetry, art and music.

The captivating story of the search through Europe for the Slender-billed curlew which stands on the brink of extinction.

Every year around August, large flocks of Eastern Curlews leave their breeding grounds in the Arctic and embark on a perilous 10,000km journey to the coast of Australia. The birds cannot swim; if they become exhausted and fall into the ocean, they die. But it’s a journey they have taken for tens of thousands of years, tracing invisible flyways in the sky in what is one of the most spectacular mass migrations in the animal kingdom. Following the Eastern Curlew along its migratory path, award-winning nature writer Harry Saddler explores how these incredible birds have impressed themselves on the cultures of the countries they fly through, the threat to their survival posed by development, and the remarkable ways these birds and humankind may be entwined. The Eastern Curlew is a delightful and vivid portrait of a fascinating natural phenomenon.

The Silver Curlew is one of Eleanor Farjeon's finest works, an intriguing re-telling of the classic story Rumpelstiltskin. Mother Codling lives with her children in a small, Norfolk windmill. One day, the Codlngs receive a surprise visit from the king of Norwich, who insists that eighteen-year-old Doll Codling must spin a certain amount of flax for him, or he will cut off her head. Doll, terrified of dying, makes a deal with a spindle-imp, in order to save herself and her family. The only clincher is, that he returns to the castle when Doll's daughter is born and insists that he take the newborn child as payment for his work. Doll, and her younger sister Poll, try desperately to keep the baby...

'Unforgettable' - ROSAMUND LUPTON Virginia Wrathmell has always known she will meet her death on the marsh. One snowy New Year's Eve, at the age of eighty-six, Virginia feels the time has finally come. New Year's Eve, 1939. Virginia is ten, an orphan arriving to meet her new parents at their mysterious house, Salt Winds. Her new home sits on the edge of a vast marsh, a beautiful but dangerous place. War feels far away out here amongst the birds and shifting sands - until the day a German fighter plane crashes into the marsh. The people at Salt Winds are the only ones to see it. What happens next is something Virginia will regret for the next seventy-five years, and which will change the whole course of her life.

Now hailed as a "proto-feminist classic" (Vulture), Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk's powerful coming-of-age novel about an ambitious young woman pursuing her artistic dreams in New York City has been a perennial favorite since it was first a bestseller in the 1950s. A starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves home to accept the job of her dreams--working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest--and the most destructive--love of her life. Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine. "I read it and I thought, 'Oh, God, this is me.'" --Scarlet Johansson