Lauren Fuge

It is rare to encounter spacecraft in nature writing. Indeed, most definitions of nature confine it to Earth’s boundaries. A few pages into Lauren Fuge’s book, we are treated to the image of two Voyager space probes, more than sixteen billion kilometres from the Earth and ‘driven by the most ecstatic imaginings of human exploration’. This is a mark of Fuge’s ambition. She is as comfortable crossing the frontiers of interstellar space as she is describing oystercatchers pattering feather-light in the sand.

‘People who write books about shit are regarded with suspicion,’ declares Dutch biologist and writer Midas Dekkers. But like the dung- beetle-worshipping ancient Egyptians before him, Dekkers understands a fundamental truth: ‘The world is round and held together by shit.’ ...