Writer, birdwatcher and orchestral conductor Lev Parikian talks to us about his latest book 'Taking Flight' and his 2020 publication 'Into the Tangled Bank' which is one of our chosen titles for this year's Wild Reads programme.
Lev Parikian is a writer, birdwatcher and the Principal Conductor of several London-based orchestras. As well as writing regularly for The Guardian’s Country Diary he has also published six books, including, Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? and Light Rains Sometimes Fall: a British Year Through Japan's Ancient 72 Seasons. Lev's 2020 publication, Into the Tangled Bank, was selected for the 2024 Wild Reads collection.
Wild Reads is a project to encourage readers and wildlife-lovers to explore and celebrate the connection between the natural world and the written word, brought to you by Suffolk Libraries and our partners, Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Our programme features a variety of creative writing and arts workshops, each crafted to explore and celebrate the natural environment.
Lev's latest book, Taking Flight: How Animals Learned to Fly and Transformed Life on Earth was published in paperback in May 2024 and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.
I remember the Richard Scarry books (What Do People Do All Day? in particular) and Dr. Seuss, so clearly pictures took precedence over words for a while. And even into my teens (and way beyond) I repeatedly devoured all of Peanuts. But I also loved Little House On The Prairie (such an exotic and dangerous world for one raised in 1970s Oxfordshire) and of course Winnie-the-Pooh, the ultimate ‘safe place’ reading for readers of all ages.
For the longest time I was extremely narrowly read, subsisting almost entirely on a diet of PG Wodehouse, Dick Francis and Douglas Adams (preferences reflected in the rhythms of my own writing today). It was only when I was well into my thirties that I became a little more daring.
It’s all appallingly disorganised and ad hoc, I’m afraid. I do use the Notes app on my phone, and I take a lot of photographs. I also use pen and notebook (if I remember) when the fancy takes me, although my handwriting is so atrocious it often takes me a while to decipher what I’ve written when revisiting my field notes.
If there’s a ‘message’, I think it’s best summarised by the final five words of the book: ‘Look. Look again. Look better.’ (This is as much an exhortation to myself as to the reader). But I’d like to think there’s a little more to the book than a Beckett-inspired bumper sticker slogan. The writing was a mixture of great fun and sheer agony – this is, so I gather, pretty normal. Because each chapter of the book is firmly rooted in place, I remember much of it extremely vividly, especially the heavenly week on Skokholm Island.
I was an avid birdwatcher as a child, and growing up in a small village there was plenty around to inspire me. The passion dissipated as I moved into adulthood and focused on other things, but it was clearly lying dormant and came surging back about a decade ago.
Holding a Storm Petrel chick during my stay on Skokholm is right up there. They’re small seabirds which only come to land to breed, and the chick is a grey bundle of fluff with a distinctive (and entirely pleasant) musty-smoky smell. A child can hold it in their cupped hand.
It’s the history of flight in the animal kingdom from first beginnings over 300 million years ago to the present day. Flight is an extraordinary phenomenon seen in only a few groups (insects, birds, bats and the extinct pterosaurs) and even though it’s all around us I think we tend to take it for granted. Writing the book was a great learning experience for me – it’s a big subject – and I’ve tried to communicate my own sense of wonder as well as a lot of fascinating information, while making it as readable as possible.
There may or may not be another book soon, but meanwhile I enjoy writing on my Substack, where there will be a medium-sized project about birds in the New Year.
They complement each other very well. The music is mostly an evening activity, which leaves plenty of time for staring out of the window thinking about the next word. And while I enjoy the extrovert side of conducting, the introvert in me is perfectly happy with the solitude necessary for writing.
Douglas Adams – Last Chance To See. It was his own personal favourite of his books – a journey to find animals on the brink of extinction.
I share a birthday with Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Morse, Sergei Prokofiev, Sheena Easton, Darcey Bussell and legendary weatherman Michael Fish.
