Late Light: 'An astonishing read' - AMY LIPTROT, AUTHOR OF THE OUTRUN

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That was a really good aspect to it, and gave fascinating info about those creatures – I wasn’t so bad with moths as we have an interest in those, but knew little about eels and mussels! So then he looks at eels, moths, mussels and crickets, speaking to experts, going on field trips, sometimes alone sometimes with a friend, becoming addicted to each creature in turn. He also draws parallels with types of people and different places, for example the long migration patterns of eels bringing to mind the journeys of migrants and refugees and the blocks to their journeys, just as eels are now blocked by modern land use patterns, both experiencing “perilous journeys”. Now, one eel swims in a bucket: Malay notes its inquisitive eyes, and the “dash of red” visible in its translucent body — the creature’s fluttering heart.

Most nature books claim to make the world feel bigger and more precious, but Late Light really does. Although I had a few books published in July on my NetGalley TBR already, I couldn’t resist requesting this one, as it was described thus: “Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian-Australian-American making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines”. My first exposure to different places was just holidaying in Northern France, which is pretty well the same as here, but I was stunned by the dryness in Tunisia and New Mexico, after living all my life somewhere that’s always vaguely damp! Amy Liptrot, The Outrun This is a book about falling in love with vanishing things Late Light is the story of Michael Malay's own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. For where is the essential difference between human lives ground down by economic austerity and homelessness, and animal lives marginalised into extinction by disappearing habitats and poisoned water?

In underscoring the concept of basic dignity as being the right of all species and illuminating the idea of an expansive, planetary politics, Malay offers a bright, fierce hope for the future.

Its a thoughtfully written and at times quite personal memoir about someone who becomes fascinated by 'uncharismatic' animals that are threatened by the spectre and ongoing reality of extinction and ecological collapse - we follow them on their investigations and encounters with these creatures and the people who care for them, as they draw parallels and insights that are related back to the chapter themes. Malay’s prose is gorgeous and astute; he looks with fresh eyes at unpopular species and finds poetry and meaning. This book considers the miraculous life cycles of a small group of species — eel, cricket, moth, mussel — and explains in pitiless detail the reasons for their looming extinction at our hands. Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines.Early in Late Light, Michael Malay’s astonishing account of a journey through the natural world, the author peers down into a water-filled bucket. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Mixing natural history with memoir, this book explores the mystery of our animal neighbours, in all their richness and variety.

We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Through the close examination of four particular ‘unloved’ animals - eels, moths, crickets and mussels - Michael Malay tells the story of the economic, political and cultural events that have shaped the modern landscape of Britain. It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold for our children. Late Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines.

One of the things that I found most engaging about this book is the way it sometimes perfectly captures that sense of the sublime that an encounter with the natural world can provoke, and that brief sensation of the boundaries of the self and the world bleeding into one another.