A book about what it means to be fully alive in a time of endings: personal, planetary. Deeply moving and rich in surprising perspectives on wild places and our relationship to them." I bought the book - I always try to buy books and CDs by people I know (and I've known his wife Julia since we were on the Fairtrade committee together). This is a book of quiet beauty, something to be savoured slowly, without rush. Maybe to be read at dawn, or at dusk. I loved it.

James spent many years working in the design industry. He has worked as a technologist, editor, art-director, graphic designer, content writer and illustrator. He was publisher of Zoomorphic Magazine for several years. He also teaches workshops for other creatives, scientists and activists. Two Lights: walking through landscapes of loss and life by James Roberts is published by September Publishing Deeply personal yet always outward looking, James Roberts delights in the world he discovers about him. Yet he also trembles, because he understands like winter light, that world is diminished [...] and diminishing [...] Two Lights reveals why all of us should be writers." In this lyrical and moving book, James Roberts weaves close observation of nature and place intertwined with memoir and science, with a heart-felt analysis of the predicament facing the natural world, the world we are continuing to destroy. He write of a lived experience, past and present, with an eye towards the future. From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada:If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us It contains climates, weathers. It can be tropical or temporal. You can burn or freeze, be soaked to the skin, blown sideways.’ A beautifully written, ultimately hopeful, journey through all that we stand to lose on this ever-more-challenged Earth." Roberts shows us this world through the lens of dawn and dusk, the two lights which mark the beginning and the end of each day. Starting at dawn, we follow this light, travelling through Russia, Mongolia, Indonesia, the Alps, flying with crested auklets, puffins, golden eagles, Arctic terns and stilts, until we arrive at his home in Wales, where ‘…the last stars are fading out of an indigo sky. On the horizon is a band of burnt orange graduating to turquoise. Strand of cloud hang like tail feathers.’

A beautiful, vivid work … [His] writing is lyrical, empathetic and keenly observed – there is joy as well as sorrow in his words and a reminder to savour the beauty that remains in this world.’ Western Daily MailHe goes at once to the heart of the matter: “I’ve spent hours staring at Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, wondering how he managed to achieve the milky light in the room, the sense of silence, the open-mouthed expression on the pregnant woman’s face and the depths behind it.” His art and illustrations have featured in several galleries and exhibitions, as well as in theatres, magazines and books. News bulletins have been covering fires in Greece and Italy, and also those in California … on the map, the brightest areas are in Africa. The whole of the Congo seems to be burning, Central and East Africa lit up, Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, Kenya. There are fires in places where it is now winter, in Australia, New Zealand, Patagonia. Even in the cold and wet north, in Siberia, Iceland and Northern Canada, there are blazes seemingly everywhere.”

But Roberts is right, we’ve forgotten. Our leaders think of wars and armies, of immigrants and policies, of votes and elections, ignoring what is happening to the world all around them: like officers fighting on the bridge of a sinking ship.

The Kingdom of Hay

Speaking candidly about his depression, anxiety and family illnesses that envelop like the squalls he’s witnessed, and willing to admit the sighting of the year’s first swift brings him to tears, Roberts recounts his travels, once-in-a-lifetime close encounters with amazing animals in the wild, and of his special love of birds from curlews, ravens and starlings to others the general public likely wouldn’t recognise. This debut book of non-fiction is also self-illustrated using a simple combination of ink, salt and water. The author draws comfort from little valley churches and woods, delights in comets and waterfalls, and his tranquil prose is enchanting. Roberts walks the bare hills and valleys of Wales, recalling “the forest of my imagination … hiding beneath my feet, in these hills, waiting to regrow.” The trees were cleared thousands of years ago, the first people of Britain burning gaps in the forest to make way for their fields. Now:

This could be my imagination at work, projecting them on to this emptied place where centuries ago wolves hunted and, before them, lions. We are all, at the last, just fading shapes in the memories of others.’ I'd assumed that I was going to a book launch for a book of poetry. James Roberts is a poet, after all, and the launch was being held at the Poetry Bookshop.

The loss of his father, the illness of his wife, alongside the grief he feels at the loss of the natural world, permeates his writing, even when he’s not talking about them directly. There’s a bittersweet quality running alongside his at times poetic prose. And at the end, there’s an almost acceptance of his depression. As we started at dawn, we finish at dusk, the time of day which Roberts loves the most. He offers us snapshots of landscapes and the life held within them, some beautiful, some not so. But wonder of the world is still present. And again, the birds are everywhere. We fly with egret, buzzard, raven and gannet as the light fades until there are no colours. Who speaks for wolf, for bear, for fox, for gull, for heron, for kingfisher – for all species, not just our own?’ Nearer to home, he describes star-gazing on the Begwns above Hay, and links it with the swans on the pond up there. He also talked about the swifts travelling from Wales down to Africa on their annual migration, and years ago he travelled a similar route through the Sahara and into the Congo, and further south. Later, when we were chatting, Melanie of the Poetry Bookshop said how pleased she was that he'd mentioned the swifts, because a previous owner of the poetry bookshop had written poems about swifts. Dawn moves at about 1000 miles an hour across the land at the equator and slows the closer you get to the poles. Knowing when the light would fade and when it would return the following day was hugely important to people. I have a thing for sunsets. If the sky looks good then I head out to a favourite spot to watch the sun disappear over the horizon. I find it a magical time.