The world is more astonishing, more miraculous and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this passionately persuasive and sharply funny book, Katherine Rundell tells us how and why.
A lavishly illustrated collection of the lives of some of the Earth's most astounding animals, The Golden Mole is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck - to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness. A swift flies two million kilometres in its lifetime. That's far enough to get to the moon and back twice over - and then once more to the moon. A pangolin keeps its tongue furled in a pouch by its hip. A Greenland shark can live five hundred years. A wombat once inspired a love poem.
'A rare and magical book. I didn't want it to end.' - Bill Bryson
'A witty, intoxicating paean to Earth's wondrous creatures.' - Observer
'A total miracle.' - Max Porter
'Rundell's pen is gold-tipped.' - Sunday Times
'I love everything about this book: it is a rare little treasure.' - Joanna Lumley
'Beautifully written.' - Monty Don
Author
About Katherine Rundell
Katherine Rundell spent her childhood in Africa and Europe. After completing a degree in English and a doctorate on John Donne, she is now a full-time writer and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she studies Renaissance literature and climbs old buildings at night. Katherine is the bestselling author of The Wolf Wilder and Rooftoppers, which won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award and was shortlisted for many others. In 2017 she was selected as one of Hay Festival's Hay30 influential young thinkers to watch. Hannah Horn is a UK-based artist who specialises in illustration, paint and printmaking. Born in Aberdeen, Hannah studied fashion illustration at the London College of Fashion. In her career thus far she has produced work for a diverse range of projects including fashion, print, skateboarding brands and album artwork. The Explorer is her first children's fiction illustration project.