Plug of the Month

A Prickly Affair by Hugh Warwick.

Unusually, my plug of this month is for a work of non-fiction. Slightly strange for a literary blog perhaps except that:

• Once upon a time I did a Biology degree. I therefore have pretensions to being an environmentalist.
• Hedgehogs formed a huge part of my childhood - my parents (particularly my Dad) would always put milk out, and then we'd listen to the snufflings of the little critters coming up the garden.
• I now know, thanks to Hugh, that the milk malarkey is turble for poor little hedgehogs, but garden wilderness is a GOOD THING. We have a great patch at the end of the garden and our own resident ball of spikes. (At least we did have, but there was some roadkill last autumn that looked a bit familiar. I sincerely hope it was the neighbour's)
• They are undeniably cute.
• Thomas Hardy wrote a great poem mentioning hedgehogs,* so they are literary after all.

Anyway, anything endorsed by both Jeanette Winterson and Anne Widdecombe must have a lot going for it. And to be described by The Guardian as "endearingly batty" has a certain cachet, don't you think?

For anyone in Oxford, Hugh will be speaking at Science Oxford on Thursday 8th April at 7.30pm "How Hedgehogs Can Save the World".  I can guarantee he will be witty, enthusiastic and informative. But if you can't get to Oxford, the paperback is out tomorrow, easily ordered on Amazon etc. And do visit his website which is brilliant.


* First seen at Thomas Hardy's birthplace in Little Bockhampton, an apt epitaph for my Dad, an English teacher, who had recently died.