Much Ado About Mothing
A Year Intoxicated by Britain’s Rare and Remarkable Moths
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Narrated by:
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Max Dowler
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By:
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James Lowen
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents Much Ado About Mothing by James Lowen, read by Max Dowler.
James Lowen narrates a year-long quest to see Britain's rarest and more remarkable moths.
Although mostly unseen by us, moths are everywhere. And their capacity to delight astounds.
Inspired by a revelatory encounter with a Poplar Hawk-moth – a huge, velvety-winged wonder wrapped in silver – James Lowen embarks on a year-long quest to celebrate the joy of Britain’s rarest and most remarkable moths. By hiking up mountains, wading through marshes and roaming by night amid ancient woodlands, James follows the trails of both Victorian collectors and present-day conservationists. Seeking to understand why they and many ordinary folk love what the general public purports to hate, his investigations reveal a heady world of criminality and controversy, derring-do and determination.
From Cornwall to the Cairngorms, James explores British landscapes to coax these much-maligned creatures out from the cover of darkness and into the light. Moths are revealed to be attractive, astonishing and approachable; capable of migratory feats and camouflage mastery, moths have much to tell us on the state of the nation’s wild and not-so-wild habitats.
As a counterweight to his travels, James and his young daughter track the seasons through a kaleidoscope of moth species living innocently yet covertly in their suburban garden. Without even leaving home, they bond over a shared joy in the uncommon beauty of common creatures, for perhaps the greatest virtue of moths, we learn, is their accessibility. Moths may be everywhere, but above all, they are here. Quite unexpectedly, no animals may be better placed to inspire the environmentalists of the future.
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Critic reviews
"If moths mean nothing to you, opening this book is like stumbling from a dark street into an unexpected party. Here is colour, wonder, surprise - and fun. A jolly, generous, kind-hearted host, James Lowen unveils a splendid serving of moth intoxication!" (Patrick Barkham)
"Charming and awe-inspiring. Whether you love or loathe moths, this book is for you." (Kate Bradbury)
"With prose as rich and velvety as a Black Rustic’s wings, in Much Ado About Mothing James Lowen shines a welcome light into the hidden world of Britain’s moths, those consumed by their beauty and conservation, and the places upon which they depend. Their stories are remarkable and, in this delicious book, Lowen serves them with the relish they deserve." (Jon Dunn)
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- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Early in 2013 Neil Hayward was at a crossroads. He didn't want to open a bakery or whatever else executives do when they quit a lucrative but unfulfilling job. He didn't want to think about his failed relationship with 'the one' or his potential for ruining a new relationship with 'the next one'. And he almost certainly didn't want to think about turning 40. And so instead he went birding. Birding was a lifelong passion. It was only among the birds that Neil found a calm that had eluded him in the confusing world of humans.
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Know a Birder? This will help you Understand.
- By Carole T. on 08-27-17
By: Neil Hayward
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The Galápagos
- A Natural History
- By: Henry Nicholls
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.
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Thought-Provoking
- By Jean on 10-23-18
By: Henry Nicholls
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Gods, Wasps and Stranglers
- The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees
- By: Mike Shanahan
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.
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Incredible research in a wonderful story
- By Alonsa Guevara on 11-24-22
By: Mike Shanahan
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The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
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A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
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A Naturalist at Large
- The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich
- By: Bernd Heinrich
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the finest scientists and writers of our time comes an engaging record of a life spent in close observation of the natural world, one that has yielded marvelous, mind-altering insight and discoveries. In essays that span several decades, Bernd Heinrich finds himself at his beloved camp in Maine, plays host to annoying visitors from Europe (the cluster fly) and more helpful guests from Asia (ladybugs), and unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of elephants in Botswana bruising mopane trees.
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Listen and See the World Anew!
- By Thoughtful Learner on 06-03-18
By: Bernd Heinrich
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The Backyard Parables
- Lessons on Gardening, and Life
- By: Margaret Roach
- Narrated by: Margaret Roach
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Margaret Roach has been harvesting 30 years of backyard parables - deceptively simple, instructive stories from a life spent digging ever deeper - and has distilled them in this memoir along with her best tips for garden making, discouraging all manner of animal and insect opponents, at-home pickling, and more. After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo."
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Great Writing Distracting Reading
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-13
By: Margaret Roach
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The Habit of Rivers
- Reflections on Trout Streams and Fly Fishing
- By: Ted Leeson, John Gierach - foreword
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Originally published in 1994, this book was a fly-fishing phenomenon in the way Howell Raines' Fly Fishing Through the Mid-Life Crisis was. Taking his fishing hobby to near metaphysical levels, Ted Leeson tells about his passions: rivers, trout, and fly fishing. With wry humor and rare insight, he explores questions that engage most fishermen: What is it about rivers that draws us so irresistibly, and why does fly fishing seem such an aptly suited response?
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Greatest Book I've Ever Listened To.
- By Travis on 03-17-18
By: Ted Leeson, and others
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The Beak of the Finch
- A Story of Evolution in Our Time
- By: Jonathan Weiner
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend 20 years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are 400 at the time of the author's visit or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about 20 generations of finches - continuously.Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.
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Fascinating in-depth look at evolution in action
- By Philip on 05-15-11
By: Jonathan Weiner
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My First Summer in the Sierra
- By: John Muir
- Narrated by: Brett Barry
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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It was June of 1869 when John Muir reluctantly accepted a job herding sheep from the central valley of California to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers, high into the Sierra Nevadas and deep into the Yosemite region. He felt ill equipped for the work, and yet the opportunity thrilled his adventurous spirit. With a notebook tied to his belt, he set out for a summer he would never forget. My First Summer in the Sierra is Muir’s classic account of that extraordinary journey.
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Almost every line is quotable
- By Kacy on 08-30-13
By: John Muir
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Ring of Bright Water
- By: Gavin Maxwell
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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'Ring of Bright Water' represents Gavin Maxwell's account of his life at Camusfearna, a remote cottage in the western Highlands, and in particular the two otters, Mijbil and Edal, who became his constant and much-loved companions.
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A Kindness to Creatures Great and Small
- By Sariah on 01-19-18
By: Gavin Maxwell
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Feathers
- The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Andy Ingalls
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: Aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. They date back more than 100 million years. Yet their story has never been fully told. In Feathers, biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through time and place. Applying the research of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers, and even art historians, Hanson asks: What are feathers? How did they evolve? What do they mean to us?
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Fantastic Science and Fun
- By Chris Reich on 12-28-14
By: Thor Hanson
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Wild Ones
- A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America
- By: Jon Mooallem
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America’s endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Jon Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it.
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The line between conservation and domestication...
- By Bonny on 04-02-14
By: Jon Mooallem
What listeners say about Much Ado About Mothing
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Andreia Butterfly
- 08-17-22
A memoir
DNF. Not Rating. After more than 6 years studying Butterflies and Moths - and breeding them in my Garden - all I can say is that this book is a Memoir. Do not get me wrong! I LOVE the huge, colourful Moths, like Luna Moths, Imperial Moths, Automeris Moths but beware: You will not learn what you need to know about Moths. It is the author's daily life and daily observation of Moths. Also, his friends lives spread throughout the book. It is so boring that I gave up reading after some hours. Unless you are interested in people's lives, you will not enjoy the book. Also, if you do not know some terms, like what is a Hawk Moth for example, he will not explain this to you. He will simply say something along the lines of "I saw a Poplar Hawk Moth" or an "Elephant Hawk Moth" in my garden. And that is it! Even though I know all genres and species by name, it did not add anything to my life, enjoyment or knowledge that "He saw a Hawk Moth". As I said before, only read it if you are interested in "his" life, not in learning about Moths.
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