The Heeding: (Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2022 for Nature Writing)

The world changed in 2020. Gradually at first, then quickly and irreversibly, the patterns by which we once lived altered completely.

The Heeding paints a picture of a year caught in the grip of history, yet filled with revelatory perspectives close at hand: a sparrowhawk hunting in a back street; the moon over a town with a loved-one's hand held tight; butterflies massing in a high-summer yard - the everyday wonders and memories that shape a life and help us recall our own.

Across four seasons and thirty-five luminous poems and illustrations, Rob Cowen and Nick Hayes lead us on a journey that takes its markers and signs from nature and a world filled with fear and pain but beauty and wonder too. Collecting birds, animals, trees and people together, The Heeding is a profound meditation to a time no-one will forget.

At its heart, this is a book that helps us look again, to heed: to be attentive to this world we share and this history we're living through, to be aware of how valuable and fragile we are, to grieve what's lost and to hope for a better and brighter tomorrow.