In the week when the British Philip Roth, Howard Jacobson, walked away with the Booker prize, we hear from the surprise winner and the chair of judges, Andrew Motion. Then we move out into the countryside to catch up with two very different authors of the week – Richard Mabey, whose latest book celebrates the common weed, and Patrick Barkham, who recently returned from a summer-long pursuit of every surviving species of British Butterfy.
But perhaps it's all too late. The former director of Friends of the Earth Tony Juniper judges that environmental degradation and climate change have already pushed us "over the edge", and that "business as usual" is no longer an option. He tells us about teaming up with the Prince of Wales to write a manifesto for living in harmony with nature, and suggests that the holistic approach which underpins homeopathy and other complementary therapies is the recipe for fixing a "world view that's no longer fit for purpose". But is the direction the west is heading in so obviously wrong? Is modernism really so dangerous? Let us know below if you're inspired to take up his challenge to go "beyond consumerism".
Reading List
The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson (Bloomsbury)
Weeds Richard Mabey (Profile)
The Butterfly Isles Patrick Barkham (Granta)
Harmony HRH Prince of Wales, Tony Juniper and Ian Skelly (Blue Door)
