Behind the Binoculars: interviews with acclaimed birdwatchers by Mark Avery and Keith Betton is published by Pelagic – here’s a review. I'm sad to say that I was bored and found the book tough to get through. I wish there was more about the wildlife rather than random perspectives of other people on Chris and his actions. If you are expecting a book of rather sweet wildlife tales from your favourite TV personality then this book may not be for you. This is a brave and powerful book. Lastly in other sections we meet him in his early 40's, apparently having counselling following a suicide bid. These passages are written in italics, not sure why. From his childhood roaming and searching for nature specimens and animals, his home life, torturous school days, teens and a fast forward to his sessions with a therapist where he discusses his suicide attempts.

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar Quotes by Chris Packham - Goodreads Fingers in the Sparkle Jar Quotes by Chris Packham - Goodreads

What I don't like, however, is his writing. I was looking forward to getting an insight into how Chris grew up with Aspergers and how his love for the natural world grew. I would have liked the book to cover his whole life up to where he is today but instead it was mainly his childhood. The biggest surprise was the honesty with which a champion of nature preservation admits to collecting rare birds eggs, snaring foxes, and taking a young falcon from the nest as a pet. There are also harrowing accounts of the bullying Chris suffered at school - without understanding the reason. At one point he asks his therapist, 'How could anyone be happy as a child?' These italicised passages reveal the troubled, even suicidal legacy of a childhood living with undiagnosed illness. There’s lots of Chris’s unhappy school times, unhappy home times, and happier times out with nature. There’s the discovery of punk. There’s the relationship with a Kestrel.His writing style challenges the conventions of memoir writing, with sudden switching of point of view, a non-linear timeline, and the occasional 'stream of consciousness' narrative.The prose veers from lyrical, almost literary, to confusing passages, yet the result is convincing and entertaining on several levels. Here is an example extract:

People love Chris Packham because he isn’t afraid to ruffle People love Chris Packham because he isn’t afraid to ruffle

Episode 1: Chris begins his recollections as an introverted, unusual young boy, isolated by his obsessions and a loner at school. It's not even just written in the third person, much of it is from the imagined point of view of the people around the author. Did he have that level of insight into the life of the guy who drives the ice cream van? No, it's a stupid device to make boring non-events into tortuously long passages where nothing happens other than several things are overly described, and then ignored forever.The descriptions of nature, wildlife and the countryside brims with his passion for his favoured subjects.

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir by Chris Packham Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir by Chris Packham

The author is not only an author, naturalist and nature photographer, but also a television presenter. Narrating his own book was thus a given. He is a talented speaker and nobody but him could possibly have read the lines with such perfection. He is best known for the children's nature series The Real Wild Show ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rea...) of the late 80s and has presented the BBC nature series Springwatch ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springw...) from 2009. I recommend listening to the audiobook rather than reading the paper book. You get an added dimension. You hear through his intonations what the author saw through his eyes and felt in his heart. This is a great book for both children and adults. Every minute was magical, every single thing it did was fascinating and everything it didn’t do was equally wondrous, and to be sat there, with a Kestrel, a real live Kestrel, my own real live Kestrel on my wrist! I felt like I’d climbed through a hole in heaven’s fence.”In his rich, lyrical and emotionally exposing memoir, Chris brings to life his childhood in the 70s, from his bedroom bursting with fox skulls, birds’ eggs and sweaty jam jars, to his feral adventures. But pervading his story is the search for freedom, meaning and acceptance in a world that didn’t understand him.