The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

Bol

A bestiary for the 21st Century, comprising of 26 chapters, each one focusing on an animal or being from A - Z, from 'Axolotl' to 'Zebrafish'. It is a wonderful, eclectic array of 'barely imagined beings', creatures that exist but are often so strange or unknown that they could have sprung from the pages of a medieval bestiary or Pliny's Natural History. In each chapter the author digresses with great dexterity, humour and intelligence, using each 'being' as way in to exploring our precarious relationship with the natural world, to better imagine ourselves and the world around us. The book is also a passionate celebration of wonder and beauty, and a recognition of the world's 'ghost species', the walking dead threatened by extinction.

Bol Partner

From Axolotl to Zebrafish, meet a world of barely imagined beings: real creatures that are often stranger and more astonishing than anything dreamt in the pages of a medieval bestiary. Ranging from the depths of the ocean to the most arid corners of the earth, Caspar Henderson captures the beauty and bizarreness of the many living forms we thought we knew and some we could never have contemplated, and invites us to better imagine the world around us. An extraordinary, vivid combination of natural history, spiritual primer and philosophical meditation, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is a mind-expanding, wonder-inducing read.