You can not only color me green with envy but slap me purple as well for my jealousy now that I’ve learned that Mark Avery has obtained an advance copy of Matthew Oates‘ forthcoming book His Imperial Majesty; A Natural History of the Purple Emperor from Bloomsbury. This is a book that I’ve been keenly eager to get a look into myself ever since I first heard a rumor of it.
Mr. Oates, who Mark describes in his Sunday Book Review this week as “an expert on this species and an unrestrained and unrestrainable enthusiast for this butterfly” will no doubt be already well-known to most readers of natural history from his 2015 book In Pursuit of Butterflies; A Fifty-year Affair as well as for his many other decades-spanning Aurelian activities. According to Mark, His Imperial Majesty is a book “about a single butterfly species but it’s about all butterflies” that “you could read […] with great pleasure even if you aren’t that fussed about this butterfly, because the author is so enthusiastic and writes so well.” I certainly hope a copy crosses the proverbial pond soon allowing to to experience this pleasure myself.
Links to Mark Avery’s Sunday book reviews appear in The Well-read Naturalist by special arrangement. You can find all of Mark’s past reviews as well as a wide-ranging collection of his other writings on his Standing Up for Nature website. Mark’s opinions regarding the books he reviews are his own.
