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How To Catch A Mole
'It is rare to encounter such respect and understanding of nature for herself.' Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Life of Cows
A life-affirming book about the British countryside, the cycle of nature, solitude and contentment, through the prism of a brilliant new nature writer’s experience working as a traditional mole-catcher, and why he gave it up.
I have been catching moles in gardens and farms for years and I have decided that I am not going to do it any more. Molecatching is a traditional skill that has given me a good life but I am old now and tired of hunting and it has taught me what I needed to learn.
Although common, moles are mysterious: their habits are inscrutable, they are anatomically bizarre, and they live completely alone. Marc Hamer has come closer to them than most, both through his long working life out in the Welsh countryside, and his experiences of rural homelessness as a boy, sleeping in hedgerows.
Over the years, Marc has learned a great deal about these small, velvet creatures who live in the dark beneath us, and the myths that surround them, and his work has also led him to a wise and uplifting acceptance of the inevitable changes that we all face. In this beautiful and meditative book, Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment.
How to Catch a Mole is a gem of nature writing, beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, which celebrates living peacefully and finding wonder in the world around us.
A life-affirming book about the British countryside, the cycle of nature, solitude and contentment, through the prism of a brilliant new nature writer’s experience working as a traditional mole-catcher, and why he gave it up.
I have been catching moles in gardens and farms for years and I have decided that I am not going to do it any more. Molecatching is a traditional skill that has given me a good life but I am old now and tired of hunting and it has taught me what I needed to learn.
Although common, moles are mysterious: their habits are inscrutable, they are anatomically bizarre, and they live completely alone. Marc Hamer has come closer to them than most, both through his long working life out in the Welsh countryside, and his experiences of rural homelessness as a boy, sleeping in hedgerows.
Over the years, Marc has learned a great deal about these small, velvet creatures who live in the dark beneath us, and the myths that surround them, and his work has also led him to a wise and uplifting acceptance of the inevitable changes that we all face. In this beautiful and meditative book, Marc tells his story and explores what moles, and a life in nature, can tell us about our own humanity and our search for contentment.
How to Catch a Mole is a gem of nature writing, beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, which celebrates living peacefully and finding wonder in the world around us.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 2019
181 people are currently reading
3082 people want to read
About the author
Marc Hamer
8 books164 followersMarc writes about the natural world, the animals and plants, the wind and the rain, the rivers and lakes, the streets and towns and the people that live in these places. He was homeless for a number of years and spent his time sleeping outdoors in the countryside, under hedges, in woodlands and at the margins of fields, employed in a hundred different jobs, from cooking in a chicken shop to building drystone walls and catching moles. For many years he has worked as a gardener.
Through all this time he has asked the question, 'Why'? what is it all about, 'Why live?'. 'What is our true nature?' Marc writes about this in his recent book 'How to Catch a Mole - And Find Yourself in Nature'
Marc has written for many years, he is an old man and has with this book released his words into the wild.
Marc's work is published by the great literary publisher Harvill Secker / Vintage in the UK, Greystone Books in North America and the USA and a dozen or so publishers in Western and Eastern Europe.
Through all this time he has asked the question, 'Why'? what is it all about, 'Why live?'. 'What is our true nature?' Marc writes about this in his recent book 'How to Catch a Mole - And Find Yourself in Nature'
Marc has written for many years, he is an old man and has with this book released his words into the wild.
Marc's work is published by the great literary publisher Harvill Secker / Vintage in the UK, Greystone Books in North America and the USA and a dozen or so publishers in Western and Eastern Europe.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 368 reviews
September 12, 2021
Absolutely stunning.
July 19, 2019
How to catch a mole, life as a molecatcher. Written in the season of catching moles, instead of catching moles. I think the only certainty I can give you about this book is that by the end you will know a lot more about moles.
There came a day when professional gardener and molecatcher (and longtime vegetarian; “life is rarely as neat and tidy as we would like”) Marc Hamer decided he had killed his last mole. Finding himself in his twilight years, and being the sort to wander with a stub of pencil in his pocket to capture the words and phrases that conjure themselves in the air around him, Hamer decided to start writing about catching moles instead of spending his time in the execution of his ancient and arcane craft. Combining nature writing, philosophy, and memoir, How to Catch a Mole is a quiet story of a quiet life, and the match of style to substance makes for a gentle and engaging read; would that we all could craft such an extraordinary artefact from our ordinary lives. [Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.]
Hamer begins with a prologue recalling his decision to retire as a molecatcher and then the meat of the narrative commences. Each chapter begins with the continuing story of his last days as a molecatcher, includes some facts and lore about moles, chronicles earlier events from his life (primarily his time as a homeless youth who learned to live close to nature), includes some ink and woodcut type illustrations (by Joe McLaren) and ends with a related poem. Hamer's voice and wisdom are the real delight here (this is no astonishing or action-packed biography) and I'll let him do most of the talking here by way of demonstration. A snippet of one of his poems:
My body is working
my mind is idling
man-shaped, pig-like
I'm snuffling, bent
I've leaving booted footprints
in the crystalline grass
and I want to swim
to hang motionless
alone in a loch
my back tattooed with clouds
with seagulls squeaky
wheeling overhead.
A sample of mole-related facts:
Moles are immensely strong. His massive hands, each of which have two thumbs, are as wide as his head. He has a thick knot of muscle in his neck and shoulders which is as hard as a pebble. I am a working man who lives by the spade and a mole's hands are stronger than mine: a living mole can easily peel my closed fingers apart and escape.
And mole lore:
I have heard stories of moles going deep, of a sexton seeing a mole running across the bottom of an empty grave – it's a story that I have heard several times, but never from anyone who has actually seen it. The world runs on fiction.
And an example of Hamer's nature-derived philosophy:
In quiet moments like this, there is a sense of completeness: nothing else is needed to make them whole and perfect. I start my work, looking down the field. I go quiet inside; the silence seems to pour out, filling any cracks or flaws in the perfection. Once you experience this feeling of simply existing you lose the need to ask why you exist.
And what he has learned at the end of the day:
I do not know what life is, but I know what it does. Molecatching has been a life that has brought me closer to the nature of my own existence, and what it means. It has allowed me to treat the wild outside as a precious home, instead of something one is cast out into. To feel directly connected to the breath of the air that fuels me, to the soil and the sun and the rain that feed me. It has made me fit and healthy and peaceful. That connection with the earth is now part of every cell of my body, but I need to rest.
How to Catch a Mole may not be every reader's cuppa tea, but I found it lovely, wise, and candid; a memoir that feels inevitable in the smooth meshing of its various parts.
August 5, 2023
Aug 4, 7am ~~ Review asap.
330pm ~~ Not too long ago I read an intriguing review of this author's latest book Spring Rain. Thanks to GR friend Diane S. for posting her review and also for mentioning that Spring Rain was the third book the author wrote about his years doing garden work. I decided I just had to read them all, because of my own much more amateur time spent out playing in the dirt. So here we are with the first book, How To Catch A Mole.
I did not get as thrilled about the book as some reviewers did, but I did like it very much and I could definitely relate to the author's love of being outdoors living his life to Nature's rhythms, and how he appreciates the solitude, the chance to live in the moment, doing what needs to be done, letting the day unfold as it needs to, not the way a clock tells you it should. That was what I loved the most about the years I spent on a horse farm.
I generally don't read reviews until after I have finished a book, and this time I noticed that a few people thought there was almost too much information about moles in this book, but I thought all the natural history sections about the moles were fascinating. What odd little critters!
As for the time the author spent living rough, it was a combination of his father kicking him out and his own choice of what to do after that. He had enough money right at first to just walk out the door and keep walking, so that is how the rough phase of his life began. I sort of expected more focus on those years, but I was impressed by the author's ability to relate bits and pieces of the past without flooding the story. I felt he wanted to share enough to explain certain attitudes, but also that he wanted to focus on NOW, or at least the now that was happening while writing the book, not wallow in psychoanalysis of the past. At least that was my feeling this first time reading the book. I may see other aspects the next time I read it, which I certainly plan to do Someday.
Meanwhile I am moving on to the second book, Seed To Dust.
330pm ~~ Not too long ago I read an intriguing review of this author's latest book Spring Rain. Thanks to GR friend Diane S. for posting her review and also for mentioning that Spring Rain was the third book the author wrote about his years doing garden work. I decided I just had to read them all, because of my own much more amateur time spent out playing in the dirt. So here we are with the first book, How To Catch A Mole.
I did not get as thrilled about the book as some reviewers did, but I did like it very much and I could definitely relate to the author's love of being outdoors living his life to Nature's rhythms, and how he appreciates the solitude, the chance to live in the moment, doing what needs to be done, letting the day unfold as it needs to, not the way a clock tells you it should. That was what I loved the most about the years I spent on a horse farm.
I generally don't read reviews until after I have finished a book, and this time I noticed that a few people thought there was almost too much information about moles in this book, but I thought all the natural history sections about the moles were fascinating. What odd little critters!
As for the time the author spent living rough, it was a combination of his father kicking him out and his own choice of what to do after that. He had enough money right at first to just walk out the door and keep walking, so that is how the rough phase of his life began. I sort of expected more focus on those years, but I was impressed by the author's ability to relate bits and pieces of the past without flooding the story. I felt he wanted to share enough to explain certain attitudes, but also that he wanted to focus on NOW, or at least the now that was happening while writing the book, not wallow in psychoanalysis of the past. At least that was my feeling this first time reading the book. I may see other aspects the next time I read it, which I certainly plan to do Someday.
Meanwhile I am moving on to the second book, Seed To Dust.
May 1, 2019
Sadly the stars only go up to 5
June 24, 2019
Choosing a career as a mole-catcher is unusual, to say the least. But then Marc Hamer has never followed any convention, rather he has forged his own path in his life. He has been homeless after his father decided he was surplus to requirements at the age of 16, worked on the trains and slept in hedges and on the beach, weeded gardens and finally ended up in this, a mole-catcher, his last career. Knowing where moles are is fairly easy, look for the conical piles of soil that appear scattered over finely tended lawns and driving the owners of the properties half-mad.
Finding these elusive creatures is much harder and takes years of experience and knowledge to locate the tunnels and set the traps. It was this knowledge that meant that mole-catchers could expect a secure and well-paid job. This solitary working life suited Hamer, spending time outside in the glorious Welsh hills sensing the seasons change imperceptibly on a daily basis and loving his life. After a lifetime of experience chasing and destroying these rarely seen animals, he made the decision to never do it again and hung up his traps.
Reading about the destruction of these poor creatures is not easy, however, Hamer somehow writes about it with a tenderness that doesn’t lessen the cruelty, but shows his small part in the cycle of life and death in nature. It is a part that he turned his back on, deciding after one incident to not continue the trapping of moles. I really like Hamer’s sparse writing too, he is not pretentious or flowery, rather he tells it how it is, celebrating the tiny details that others often miss, enjoying the wind and rain as well as retreating home for shelter, companionship and a tumbler of whisky for warmth. It feels like he is an integral part of the landscape and like all living things on this planet, just a transient blip in the geological deep time. I preferred the prose to the poetry, and all the way through it is beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren.
Finding these elusive creatures is much harder and takes years of experience and knowledge to locate the tunnels and set the traps. It was this knowledge that meant that mole-catchers could expect a secure and well-paid job. This solitary working life suited Hamer, spending time outside in the glorious Welsh hills sensing the seasons change imperceptibly on a daily basis and loving his life. After a lifetime of experience chasing and destroying these rarely seen animals, he made the decision to never do it again and hung up his traps.
Reading about the destruction of these poor creatures is not easy, however, Hamer somehow writes about it with a tenderness that doesn’t lessen the cruelty, but shows his small part in the cycle of life and death in nature. It is a part that he turned his back on, deciding after one incident to not continue the trapping of moles. I really like Hamer’s sparse writing too, he is not pretentious or flowery, rather he tells it how it is, celebrating the tiny details that others often miss, enjoying the wind and rain as well as retreating home for shelter, companionship and a tumbler of whisky for warmth. It feels like he is an integral part of the landscape and like all living things on this planet, just a transient blip in the geological deep time. I preferred the prose to the poetry, and all the way through it is beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren.
June 6, 2020
3.5
This was such a wonderful book to read whilst in my small summer cottage, walking around in my garden each morning counting the new mole mounds that had appeared during the night. Those small animals are so clever and so difficult to get rid of (I haven't tried myself).
Marc Hamer gives an interesting overview of the mole as a species, of those little hard-working blind animals. And at the same time, the book is an ode to nature and a memoir of his time as a homeless young man just walking for months and months in nature, observing it, creating a life long bond with it.
He emphasises how important it is to just let nature be. Not to have your lawn manicured to perfection, not to use pesticides to kill insects and poison moles. They were there first and we should learn to live side by side with them. I wholeheartedly agree. On my own little patch of green, I try to leave many things untouched. So the soil would be more fertile and birds would have more interesting material to collect for their nests and to eat. This is how it should be ideally and Hamer argues it so well in his book. A great book for any nature lover and an eye-opener for a gardener who despises moles.
This was such a wonderful book to read whilst in my small summer cottage, walking around in my garden each morning counting the new mole mounds that had appeared during the night. Those small animals are so clever and so difficult to get rid of (I haven't tried myself).
Marc Hamer gives an interesting overview of the mole as a species, of those little hard-working blind animals. And at the same time, the book is an ode to nature and a memoir of his time as a homeless young man just walking for months and months in nature, observing it, creating a life long bond with it.
He emphasises how important it is to just let nature be. Not to have your lawn manicured to perfection, not to use pesticides to kill insects and poison moles. They were there first and we should learn to live side by side with them. I wholeheartedly agree. On my own little patch of green, I try to leave many things untouched. So the soil would be more fertile and birds would have more interesting material to collect for their nests and to eat. This is how it should be ideally and Hamer argues it so well in his book. A great book for any nature lover and an eye-opener for a gardener who despises moles.
unfinished
July 23, 2019I read the first 103 pages. Hamer opens, “I am a gardener. I have been catching moles in gardens and farms for years, and I have decided that I am not going to do it any more. Molecatching is a traditional skill that has given me a good life, but I am old now and tired of hunting, trapping and killing, and it has taught me what I needed to learn.” What follows is a gentle natural history of the mole, as well as a meditation on our connections with a nature and a memoir of a life lived largely outdoors, especially in the 18 months the author spent homeless as a teenager. The writing is fine, if a bit flat and repetitive, and by halfway through I hadn’t worked out whether this is about atonement or not. Each chapter ends with a free verse poem that isn’t distinguished from the prose by much apart from the line structure. The writing reminded me slightly of Paul Evans’s, or maybe that’s just my mind playing tricks on me because the two nature writers look a little bit alike. Lovely woodcuts by Joe McLaren.
May 24, 2019
A lovely, respectful take of a job that no one wants to do. You’d think reading about someone who kills moles for a living would be gruesome and upsetting, but Hammer shares a lovely respect of nature and beauty and appreciating the small moments in life. This is why I read nature writing 👌🏼
February 28, 2023
cam 3 stelute jumate :)
February 13, 2024
4 ⭐️ for a short book picked up on a whim that delighted me. This authors tale is the culmination of his life's work and learning whilst being a mole catcher. I know, this sounds odd, but it really isn't.
It's simply the changing journey this Mans life takes up until the end of his career. Lovely stuff.
It's simply the changing journey this Mans life takes up until the end of his career. Lovely stuff.
January 3, 2020
At first, I felt this book was a solid 4.5 stars but after realizing that I couldn't stop thinking about it, I needed to change it to 5 -- after all, it's very short and it deserves that extra half star for doing SO MUCH within so few pages. And for being poetry and prose and so many stories all at once.
It's a book about a boy whose mother dies when he's sixteen and his father throws him out as "surplus to requirements." He spends seasons walking across England without a home-- on towpaths along canals. He sleeps, he walks, he wakes with nature. Oh, and he grows up to do lots of things-- one of them is to kill moles.
I don't want to spoil it, so I'll just say that I wish I could've taken my time with this little book a bit more. It deserves to go unrushed. I had to return it to the library before I got a chance to really go slow, settle in, get closer. Here's an example of the poetry that finishes most chapters:
I've packed this worn out year to a stump
and stored its fat for winter
I watched the geese go
I will still be here when they come
and go again
my face less smooth
my back less straight
And another excerpt (prose this time) that I just loved. He talks about people being "right":
Not knowing is for me the best of all possible worlds; it contains a sweetness and a playful willingness to accept change and to enjoy the multi-layered, million-petaled flower of life without having the compulsion to know what everything is
I would like to print that out and pass it around. Yes! There is joy in not knowing. In not Googling every damn thing that crosses your mind.
I do think that it might help to be middle-aged to get a lot of it. There's an impending mood of loss. But I think you'll find (if you read it) that there's also a strong sense of renewal that's present if we look for it.
It's a book about a boy whose mother dies when he's sixteen and his father throws him out as "surplus to requirements." He spends seasons walking across England without a home-- on towpaths along canals. He sleeps, he walks, he wakes with nature. Oh, and he grows up to do lots of things-- one of them is to kill moles.
I don't want to spoil it, so I'll just say that I wish I could've taken my time with this little book a bit more. It deserves to go unrushed. I had to return it to the library before I got a chance to really go slow, settle in, get closer. Here's an example of the poetry that finishes most chapters:
I've packed this worn out year to a stump
and stored its fat for winter
I watched the geese go
I will still be here when they come
and go again
my face less smooth
my back less straight
And another excerpt (prose this time) that I just loved. He talks about people being "right":
Not knowing is for me the best of all possible worlds; it contains a sweetness and a playful willingness to accept change and to enjoy the multi-layered, million-petaled flower of life without having the compulsion to know what everything is
I would like to print that out and pass it around. Yes! There is joy in not knowing. In not Googling every damn thing that crosses your mind.
I do think that it might help to be middle-aged to get a lot of it. There's an impending mood of loss. But I think you'll find (if you read it) that there's also a strong sense of renewal that's present if we look for it.
October 13, 2019
A charming, small, quick read. This book reads like a long cozy letter or monologue, and is interspersed with poems, natural history facts, and woodcuts. The narrative itself alternates between the author's youth and recent past, interspersed with meditations.
If that sounds like a recipe for self-published, disorganized, self-involved memoir disaster, that's because that's what this approach would usually lead to. Here, though, the author walks that tightrope and, though the writing isn't amazing and the poetry and woodcuts struck me as average, he takes us across safe and satisfied to the last few pages. I guess that's thanks to a rare sort of universally avuncular / pastoral tone that he's managed to strike and hold through the story.
I wound up really enjoying the author's vicarious company, who sometimes harbors a Walt Whitman or Huckleberry Finn streak, toned way down by strains of Wendell Berry and Gilbert White. Also, the natural history bits didn't come across as pedagogic in tone. Little tidbits of mole natural and social history came up almost as they would have during a conversation, so that they felt natural, and not like cut-and-paste encyclopedia entries. Also, the book as a whole avoided the feeling of forced quaintness by including some 21st century references when appropriate.
If that sounds like a recipe for self-published, disorganized, self-involved memoir disaster, that's because that's what this approach would usually lead to. Here, though, the author walks that tightrope and, though the writing isn't amazing and the poetry and woodcuts struck me as average, he takes us across safe and satisfied to the last few pages. I guess that's thanks to a rare sort of universally avuncular / pastoral tone that he's managed to strike and hold through the story.
I wound up really enjoying the author's vicarious company, who sometimes harbors a Walt Whitman or Huckleberry Finn streak, toned way down by strains of Wendell Berry and Gilbert White. Also, the natural history bits didn't come across as pedagogic in tone. Little tidbits of mole natural and social history came up almost as they would have during a conversation, so that they felt natural, and not like cut-and-paste encyclopedia entries. Also, the book as a whole avoided the feeling of forced quaintness by including some 21st century references when appropriate.
July 28, 2022
See raamat meeldib sulle, kui sulle meeldib loodus ja/või tahad õppida sellega koos elama.
See raamat ei meeldi sulle, kui otsid mutitõrjemanuaali.
See raamat ei meeldi sulle, kui otsid mutitõrjemanuaali.
August 12, 2019
How to Catch A Mole by Marc Hamer
I will admit that I was skeptical about reading this memoir. Catching a mole, really! Was I surprised and delighted! Hamer has written a lovely book not only about his life in the outdoors but his philosophy on life that he has learned from being in nature. His language and poetry is artistic and beautiful and I was entranced. Although I don’t think I could live in nature as he did, I was envious of his experience and was grateful to be able to read his thoughts and memories about his life as a mole catcher. Absolutely wonderful! Please read !
I will admit that I was skeptical about reading this memoir. Catching a mole, really! Was I surprised and delighted! Hamer has written a lovely book not only about his life in the outdoors but his philosophy on life that he has learned from being in nature. His language and poetry is artistic and beautiful and I was entranced. Although I don’t think I could live in nature as he did, I was envious of his experience and was grateful to be able to read his thoughts and memories about his life as a mole catcher. Absolutely wonderful! Please read !
August 11, 2019
Chances are, you will dig up your lawn and replace it with a flower meadow after reading this, and allow nature to do what it does.
August 15, 2020
A book has never made me happier.
November 7, 2019
Well, this was pretty much a perfect book—or it was until I knocked over my S’well bottle of iced tea and practically drowned the darling mammal on its cover.
I loved this! Ostensibly about critters known for tearing up cow pastures, stately gardens, and suburban lawns, it’s really a rumination on nature, life cycles, peripatetic independence, perambulation, gardening, mole-catching, writing haiku, and of sleeping under hedgerows. Now having given up the catching of moles, Marc Hamer has time to share his thoughts. Thoughts like decay being a good thing. Yes. Decay as a good thing! As in—don’t rake those leaves! Don’t mow your meadow during growing season! And don’t be afraid of either being ordinary or of falling apart! May I give you my two favorite quotes?
‘’Having worked all my life, created a family, discovered a home, I feel as secure as a working man ever feels, and I feel a sense of equality again with the crow and the toad and the hawthorn, with the rain and the wind. I am them and they are me. I lost my self-importance early on and do not want to differentiate myself from the world around me. I am just another animal, another tree, another wildflower in the meadow among billions of others, each unique in their own way, each just like the others in other ways, each one just another expression of nature trying to survive. There is something deeply magnificent in being just ordinary.”
And:
“ This is a small life, and everything comes to nothing in the end. I like that. I like the idea of smallness, and the wonder of basic human things. “
So. I recommend this slim, lovely volume to anyone who feels that he or she can be comfortable with a honest look at the ways in which nature recycles itself when given allowance to do so. What I don’t recommend is Googling ‘mole traps’.
I loved this! Ostensibly about critters known for tearing up cow pastures, stately gardens, and suburban lawns, it’s really a rumination on nature, life cycles, peripatetic independence, perambulation, gardening, mole-catching, writing haiku, and of sleeping under hedgerows. Now having given up the catching of moles, Marc Hamer has time to share his thoughts. Thoughts like decay being a good thing. Yes. Decay as a good thing! As in—don’t rake those leaves! Don’t mow your meadow during growing season! And don’t be afraid of either being ordinary or of falling apart! May I give you my two favorite quotes?
‘’Having worked all my life, created a family, discovered a home, I feel as secure as a working man ever feels, and I feel a sense of equality again with the crow and the toad and the hawthorn, with the rain and the wind. I am them and they are me. I lost my self-importance early on and do not want to differentiate myself from the world around me. I am just another animal, another tree, another wildflower in the meadow among billions of others, each unique in their own way, each just like the others in other ways, each one just another expression of nature trying to survive. There is something deeply magnificent in being just ordinary.”
And:
“ This is a small life, and everything comes to nothing in the end. I like that. I like the idea of smallness, and the wonder of basic human things. “
So. I recommend this slim, lovely volume to anyone who feels that he or she can be comfortable with a honest look at the ways in which nature recycles itself when given allowance to do so. What I don’t recommend is Googling ‘mole traps’.
August 17, 2022
What is it to be learned from the memoirs of a mole catcher? Read it and you'll be amazed. This is a simple book but one beautiful like a hidden gem. It's not a masterpiece, nor a bestseller; it's a wonderful meditation about the beauty which can be found in small things, about how mortal we humans are and how immortal the nature which surround us is.
April 18, 2020
A quiet, wandering sort of a book on a man reflecting on his life in nature and killing moles. An interesting perspective I wouldn't have ever thought of to be interested in before. I learned a lot about moles too and would love to learn more.
June 11, 2022
So I wasn't too sure what to expect from this book as it is about trapping and killing animals but I actually found it very interesting. And I think it is actually more about nature than actually about trapping moles.
And can I say that moles are cute? The author kept mentioning "mole hills" and since I had no idea what a mole hill actually looked like I had googled it. And found photos of moles poking their heads and arms out of a hill of dirt. Sort if like the little mounds of dirt that an ant makes but much bigger. And I thought "they are cute!" Of course I think most animals are cute. And being autistic I often like animals better than people. But unfortunately not everyone feels this way, especially when it comes to moles.
They apparently do a lot of damage. They not only ruin gardens and farms and that perfect lawn people desire but their holes can break a horse's leg! And since using poison is too dangerous you have to catch them the old fashioned way. Apparently the Romans were catching moles too!
Luckily this book is not sad or upsetting. At all.
It's not about death but about life. And I enjoyed reading the author's personal story of how he got connected to nature. How he became an animal like the other animals. Living outside and traveling from place to place, sleeping in piles of leaves or under hedgerows. How he became one with the birds or how he would wake up with all sorts of critters on him. It was tough at times but he was living in the moment. Nothing else really didn't matter. He was happy. He is not a people person. He prefers the company outdoors with the fields, river and the sky. I sure can relate to that! And so he was homeless in the great outdoors and just walking wherever his feet carried him, no real worries except what he was going to eat. So the majority of the book is about his time spent with nature and it is wonderfully described. The writing is very lyrical. Yet somehow he includes a lot of detail too. But its never dull or boring at all. It just flows so smoothly and I was quite hooked! He may be a man but he is a bit like a male Snow White with birds landing on his boots!
The book also includes the differences he notes in the wild world from back then to now. Big differences. But the moles are still there.
Before I started reading this I didn't know anything about moles. Had no idea what they ate. Or why people were catching them. But I found it all very fascinating. And they are actually very small, delicate creatures.
But nature is a chain. You cannot remove one bit from the chain and think it is going to be ok. And that chain starts with the soil and the bacteria in it. And leaf litter and worms. He explains it all in his book. And the texture of the soil is important too! Moles do not like compacted soil.
There are poems scattered throughout the book as well but I actually preferred the actual story / text bits. I am not really one for reading poetry. I do have a few favorite poems I learned as a kid but than again that is rare.
And something else I have realized while reading this is the fact I have never seen a mole hill. I guess they are not around here? I do have woods right here but maybe its the wrong kind of soil? But many years ago back in the 80s I do recall my grandfather trying to kill groundhogs with the "hose hooked to the tailpipe of a car" method that the author mentions in here. My grandmother used to yell at him for doing that, saying it was stupid. She said the groundhog would just run out another hole! But he would try it anyway. I also remember many years later I had actually seen a groundhog in my yard and had no idea what it was!
But I have never seen a mole... I think it would be neat to see one. But very unlikely. There are beavers on the river here but I have never seen them either...although others have. I do see a lot of birds and have a knack for getting close to them for photos. I do feel very connected with nature like the author describes in here. But I would never sleep outside. Of course he is a man so he can do that but what about ticks? He never brings up that subject but he does mention bees and wasps.
So if you love nature you will love reading this. It is not gloomy at all even if it is about trapping animals. I actually learned a lot from reading this.
And can I say that moles are cute? The author kept mentioning "mole hills" and since I had no idea what a mole hill actually looked like I had googled it. And found photos of moles poking their heads and arms out of a hill of dirt. Sort if like the little mounds of dirt that an ant makes but much bigger. And I thought "they are cute!" Of course I think most animals are cute. And being autistic I often like animals better than people. But unfortunately not everyone feels this way, especially when it comes to moles.
They apparently do a lot of damage. They not only ruin gardens and farms and that perfect lawn people desire but their holes can break a horse's leg! And since using poison is too dangerous you have to catch them the old fashioned way. Apparently the Romans were catching moles too!
Luckily this book is not sad or upsetting. At all.
It's not about death but about life. And I enjoyed reading the author's personal story of how he got connected to nature. How he became an animal like the other animals. Living outside and traveling from place to place, sleeping in piles of leaves or under hedgerows. How he became one with the birds or how he would wake up with all sorts of critters on him. It was tough at times but he was living in the moment. Nothing else really didn't matter. He was happy. He is not a people person. He prefers the company outdoors with the fields, river and the sky. I sure can relate to that! And so he was homeless in the great outdoors and just walking wherever his feet carried him, no real worries except what he was going to eat. So the majority of the book is about his time spent with nature and it is wonderfully described. The writing is very lyrical. Yet somehow he includes a lot of detail too. But its never dull or boring at all. It just flows so smoothly and I was quite hooked! He may be a man but he is a bit like a male Snow White with birds landing on his boots!
The book also includes the differences he notes in the wild world from back then to now. Big differences. But the moles are still there.
Before I started reading this I didn't know anything about moles. Had no idea what they ate. Or why people were catching them. But I found it all very fascinating. And they are actually very small, delicate creatures.
But nature is a chain. You cannot remove one bit from the chain and think it is going to be ok. And that chain starts with the soil and the bacteria in it. And leaf litter and worms. He explains it all in his book. And the texture of the soil is important too! Moles do not like compacted soil.
There are poems scattered throughout the book as well but I actually preferred the actual story / text bits. I am not really one for reading poetry. I do have a few favorite poems I learned as a kid but than again that is rare.
And something else I have realized while reading this is the fact I have never seen a mole hill. I guess they are not around here? I do have woods right here but maybe its the wrong kind of soil? But many years ago back in the 80s I do recall my grandfather trying to kill groundhogs with the "hose hooked to the tailpipe of a car" method that the author mentions in here. My grandmother used to yell at him for doing that, saying it was stupid. She said the groundhog would just run out another hole! But he would try it anyway. I also remember many years later I had actually seen a groundhog in my yard and had no idea what it was!
But I have never seen a mole... I think it would be neat to see one. But very unlikely. There are beavers on the river here but I have never seen them either...although others have. I do see a lot of birds and have a knack for getting close to them for photos. I do feel very connected with nature like the author describes in here. But I would never sleep outside. Of course he is a man so he can do that but what about ticks? He never brings up that subject but he does mention bees and wasps.
So if you love nature you will love reading this. It is not gloomy at all even if it is about trapping animals. I actually learned a lot from reading this.
November 17, 2022
“In quiet moments like this, there is a sense of completeness: nothing else is needed to make them whole and perfect. I start my work, looking down into the field. I go quiet inside: the silence seems to pour out, filling any cracks or flaws in the perfection. Once you experience this feeling of simply existing you lose the need to ask why you exist.”
This is an exquisite memoir about Marc Hamer’s connecting with nature - through his time spent living outdoors when his father decided he wasn’t really necessary at home to his time as a mole catcher. At the point Hamer is writing this, he has decided to end this role - and much of this work is a reflection on how he has connected with the world around him, what he values, and how it influences the way he lives his life. In many ways, this is a gentle, reflective work that creates a sense of peace and stillness, even when describing the trapping of the moles. This is beautiful writing about our world and I appreciated the poem that ended each chapter as much as I did the prose of the sections themselves. I marked a number of quotes in here, but here is one more to close out the review:
“Not knowing is for me the best of all possible worlds; it contains a sweetness and a playful willingness to accept change and to enjoy the multi-layered, million-petalled flower of life without having the compulsion to know what everything is.”
This is an exquisite memoir about Marc Hamer’s connecting with nature - through his time spent living outdoors when his father decided he wasn’t really necessary at home to his time as a mole catcher. At the point Hamer is writing this, he has decided to end this role - and much of this work is a reflection on how he has connected with the world around him, what he values, and how it influences the way he lives his life. In many ways, this is a gentle, reflective work that creates a sense of peace and stillness, even when describing the trapping of the moles. This is beautiful writing about our world and I appreciated the poem that ended each chapter as much as I did the prose of the sections themselves. I marked a number of quotes in here, but here is one more to close out the review:
“Not knowing is for me the best of all possible worlds; it contains a sweetness and a playful willingness to accept change and to enjoy the multi-layered, million-petalled flower of life without having the compulsion to know what everything is.”
January 9, 2020
.It is a different book. A refreshing approach to stay away from capitalism, technology and productivity.
It is an effort to catch life raw when it is barefoot and then feeling it's contours and trying to be it's friend.
Main character is a mole catcher who is aging but spirits are still high.
His children are settled and wife is only companion who goes away temporarily.
Authors sets on a journey to live minamilistic life when he sleeps in nature, on parks, banks, tree and any othe place available. Writing is excellent and book is written directly from heart. There are a lot of biological and social and historical facts about moles.
It is fascinating to read. Parts detailing burrows of moles and when he has to kill a mole with hands is very touching and innovative.
You could almost feel things playing live.
A very good work if you are looking for raw and natural writing.
Thanks edelweiss plus and publisher for review copy.
It is an effort to catch life raw when it is barefoot and then feeling it's contours and trying to be it's friend.
Main character is a mole catcher who is aging but spirits are still high.
His children are settled and wife is only companion who goes away temporarily.
Authors sets on a journey to live minamilistic life when he sleeps in nature, on parks, banks, tree and any othe place available. Writing is excellent and book is written directly from heart. There are a lot of biological and social and historical facts about moles.
It is fascinating to read. Parts detailing burrows of moles and when he has to kill a mole with hands is very touching and innovative.
You could almost feel things playing live.
A very good work if you are looking for raw and natural writing.
Thanks edelweiss plus and publisher for review copy.
February 9, 2021
This beautiful memoir does, indeed, detail how to catch a mole in the traditional, time-honoured way followed by generations of mole catchers since the Romans began in Britain around 54 BC. But it is so much more than a description of the job; lyrical, insightful, and wise, this is the story of one man’s lifelong connection to the earth, and his deep understanding of his place in the world. In prose and poetry, author Marc Hamer describes the fragrant hedgerows, the rooks and jackdaws and robins, the rivers and fields and wild spaces that he has quietly walked through and inhabited. You get the sense of a man who has never sought easy answers, but has always questioned, listened, and learned.
This lovely quote gives a sense of the man and the gentle, introspective style of his writing:
“Having worked all my life, created a family, discovered a home, I feel as secure as a working-class man ever feels, and I feel a sense of equality again with the crow and the toad and the hawthorn, with the rain and wind. I am them and they are me. I lost my self-importance early on and do not want to differentiate myself from the world around me. I am just another animal, another tree, another wild flower in the meadow among billions of others, each unique in their own way, each just like the others in other ways, each one just another expression of nature trying to survive. There is something deeply magnificent in being just ordinary” (103).
I loved this book. If you enjoy nature writing, this is a treasure. His next book, Seed to Dust: A Gardener's Story, will be published in May.
This lovely quote gives a sense of the man and the gentle, introspective style of his writing:
“Having worked all my life, created a family, discovered a home, I feel as secure as a working-class man ever feels, and I feel a sense of equality again with the crow and the toad and the hawthorn, with the rain and wind. I am them and they are me. I lost my self-importance early on and do not want to differentiate myself from the world around me. I am just another animal, another tree, another wild flower in the meadow among billions of others, each unique in their own way, each just like the others in other ways, each one just another expression of nature trying to survive. There is something deeply magnificent in being just ordinary” (103).
I loved this book. If you enjoy nature writing, this is a treasure. His next book, Seed to Dust: A Gardener's Story, will be published in May.
July 26, 2023
in my mind i tend to separate earth and body and religion. in bible study the other day we talked about Gods first incarnation as the creation of the world. what a concept to consider with literature like this, exploring to relationship between human’s spirituality and the earth. a lifetime of mole hunting taught this man the cruelty of nature and the connection that can be found.
September 12, 2023
A romanticised book about an animal serial killer.
If you are a vegan then don’t bother.
If you are a vegan then don’t bother.
November 17, 2019
Lovely, lilting, and lyrical.
March 11, 2024
A joy to read. Peaceful, thoughtful and poetic. Themes include: our relationship to nature, aging, and moles.
January 9, 2025
An absolutely gorgeous book and my favorite read of 2024. Maybe my favorite read ever.
I finished this book over four months ago and still think about it daily. A delightful blend of fact, philosophy, and poetry accompanied by charming illustrations. I have never underlined so many passages in a book before.
“How to Catch a Mole” is a quick book that embraces a slow life. It’s thoughtful, comforting, and teeming with nature. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the outdoors.
I finished this book over four months ago and still think about it daily. A delightful blend of fact, philosophy, and poetry accompanied by charming illustrations. I have never underlined so many passages in a book before.
“How to Catch a Mole” is a quick book that embraces a slow life. It’s thoughtful, comforting, and teeming with nature. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the outdoors.
March 4, 2023
How to Learn a Little Bit About Moles: And a Lot About Being a Nice, Humble British Man Embracing Wildness and Playing a Small Part in the Circle of Life
May 28, 2023
i feel at peace
& now I know a lot about moles
& now I know a lot about moles
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