Adrift Tracey Williams Unicorn, £20
In 1997, sixty-two containers were swept overboard from the cargo ship Tokio Express in a huge storm off Land’s End. One of those bus-sized containers was filled with 5 million pieces of Lego. Adrift is the gripping story of those colourful plastic pieces and what they can teach us about how oceans work and the state they’re in. In a bizarre twist, most of the Lego that was swept overboard that day was sea-themed: scuba divers, octopus, rubber dinghies, seaweed, and so on. And for 25 years Tracey Williams has been obsessed with finding them all,
amassing a huge collection along the way. Adrift is in part a field guide to that lost Lego, but it’s also a compendium of art, odd facts, and stories of people who have dedicated their lives to understanding the oceans. Where are all the 51,800 Lego sharks that have never been found, for instance? Whatever the answer, it’s an eerie reflection of the catastrophic decline of the real thing in the oceans. I emerged from this book with
rejuvenated enthusiasm for protecting our blue planet – and possibly a new hobby, too. Dan Ryan
The Lost Rainforests of Britain Guy Shrubsole William Collins, £20
British rainforests must surely be the most romantic of our ecosystems. Mild, damp and luxuriantly green all year, they tend to grow in the steepest, wildest and rockiest places of these isles. Indeed the sessile oak, which makes up many of the trees in British rainforests, has the scientific name Quercus petraea, meaning ‘oak of the
rocks’. Britain should be cloaked in rainforests, but many have been lost to the saw, overgrazed or turned into farmland. Guy’s beautiful and evocative book takes us on a tour of the country’s remaining rainforests to meet the people who love them and are trying to regrow them. It’s time to restore these precious and unique places. DR
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