Swamp Songs

Journeys Through Marsh, Meadow and Other Wetlands

By: Tom Blass

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Bloomsbury presents Swamp Songs by Tom Blass, read by David Thorpe.

'Bracingly original' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

'A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches' Times Literary Supplement

From Romney Marsh to the Danube Delta, from Cyprus to the bayous of Louisiana and on to the Bay of Bengal, Tom Blass crosses swamps, marshes and wetlands to meet the people who have made these in-between worlds their homes.

Here are true stories and myths of smugglers and runaway slaves, of fishermen, shepherds and salt-gatherers – and of tiger gods, flamingos and floods. A dazzling exploration of the precarious lives led where land and water tussle, Swamp Songs is a vital reappraisal and vibrant celebration of people and environments closely intertwined.©2022 Tom Blass, Extract from Letters from Iceland by W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, published by Faber and Faber © W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, 1937Extract from Wintering Out by Seamus Heaney, published by Faber and Faber© Seamus Heaney, 1972 (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

Bracingly original ... Blass reveals himself to be more ethnologist than naturalist. While he pays respectful attention to the fauna that he encounters as he tacks from the Romney Marshes to Louisiana’s bayous by way of the Danube delta, it is the people he is after. (Kathryn Hughes)

A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches (Sara Hudston)

Enriching and magical, Tom Blass's writing is a pleasure to read. (Donald S. Murray)

What a joy to roam with Tom Blass through some of nature’s most unjustly maligned and underappreciated habitats, where webs of life interconnect wildly and wondrously with human stories. Swamp Songs is a delicious blend of ecology and culture. (Amy-Jane Beer)