Book review: ‘The Eternal Season’ by Stephen Rutt

‘The Eternal Season’ by Stephen Rutt

Set during the (first) coronavirus pandemic summer of 2020—a time during which many British people sought solace in the natural world—The Eternal Season describes Stephen Rutt’s unplanned lockdown exile in southern England, and subsequent return to Scotland.

It’s a book about trying to enjoy, and find comfort from, the familiar seasonal minutiae of nature. But the more Rutt observes, the more he comes to appreciate our own species’ ongoing pernicious affects on the natural world.

Even though The Eternal Season celebrates joys of summer, it’s also a book with nagging concerns. Unwelcome changes are afoot. Baselines are shifting—sometimes so subtly we barely notice. But we should be noticing. Our new normals would once have been seen as alarmingly abnormal. As Rutt perceptively observes, ‘The worst catastrophes come in increments, not as a sudden apocalypse.’

As someone who himself tries to blend science- and nature-writing, I appreciate how difficult it is to get the mix just right. Rutt achieves this admirably. The Eternal Season is very much a traditional ‘nature’ book, but with just the right amount of science to make you stop and think. I picked up some useful new terms from this book. Terms I’ll now be incorporating into my own lexicon, such as phenological mismatch, photoperiod, and ecoliterate. But don’t let these unlovely terms put you off: they describe important concepts that gave this reader genuine pause for thought.

Highly recommended.

Note: I will receive a small referral fee if you buy this book via one of the above links.

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher.

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