Here we go! New Year, new plan. Why or even how it takes 26 hours rather than 24 for everyone to gather in the new year is baffling to me, but I love it because of that! For my part, my efforts from here on out will be to my own material rather than to reviewing the work of others. I began this review blog in the hope that I would achieve two things: the first was to learn from analyzing the work of others, and the second hope was that others might be tempted to read my work based on the sort of reviews I put out.
I tried to avoid merely championing my own writing, but I was not shy of mentioning my own work if it was relevant to what I was reviewing. While the first hope was realized in that I did get some good insights to how and what I wanted to write, the second was not. I guess people have no loyalty to writers these days and I can't blame them. You gotta read what trips your trigger!
What I learned was more of a negative than a positive, in the sense that I knew exactly what I didn't want to write. Everything else came from that and going forward, I intend to travel that same path and build on it, with a diversion here and there. One of these diversions I'm going to be setting up for publication today, although it won't actually be available until later in the month. In fact today marks the setting-up of three books all of which will be published this month. Hopefully this is symbolic of a work ethic I will embrace this year and beyond. Once again I embark upon a voyage in the Weal Sea!
But to this review, which is short and sweet, just like the book! This audiobook was read beautifully by Jane McDowell. It was short, yet replete with information about foxes. Most of it is of the British "red" fox, but it covers foxes in general, with specific examples from different parts of the world, and in doing so it imparts an overall picture while giving engaging and fascinating details of a fox's life in Britain. There's so much to learn about this misunderstood member of the dog family.
The author, a mammal ecologist who has studied foxes for many years, challenges many misconceptions about these mammals while educating the reader to the realities of it, which are much less scary and far more charming. In additional to revealing an extraordinary story about what foxes are and are not, and how they live and move and have their being, including their contributions to the environment, she also discusses how we might move ahead successfully together with them through neither vilifying nor holding foxes in adoration. I commend this as a worthy listen.
