An English Guide to Birdwatching by Nicholas Royle
I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Professor Nicholas Royle through reading and reviewing his second novel for Shiny New Books, and then the Q&A we did.
An English Guide to Birdwatching is in essence a novel exploring (English) human relationships through ornithropomorphic means – the whole is pervaded by avian references. However, it’s also very ‘meta’ and experimental – containing a group of essays called ‘Hides’ and features Royle himself and also his namesake – the other author called Nicholas Royle (First Novel etc).
I absolutely loved it! (10/10)
Read my full review here.
Read my Q&A with Nicholas (whose answers are wonderful!) here.
Source: Review copy – thank you.
Nicholas Royle, An English Guide to Birdwatching (Myriad editions, May 2017) paperback original, 320 pages.
I usually get annoyed by metafiction, but this sounds fascinating, particularly as my husband is a keen birdwatcher. When I first opened the e-mail with your post I thought I was going to be all clever and let you know you’d used a photograph of the wrong person…but then I read further! 😉 I’ve read First Novel by the other NR.
Gotcha! The two NRs know each other well and have done events together – and the other NR has put this NR in one of his previous novels. They appear to enjoy the confusion as they can’t avoid it!
Fascinating stuff. I and my husband are birdwatchers so we might both try this one.
It’s probably an acquired taste, but I loved it.