It was Aristotle, in the first book of his “Nichomachean Ethics,” who wrote, “For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy” to conclude his point that the cultivation of virtue takes prolonged effort and a great amount of time.
For those who count themselves regular readers of Mark Avery’s blog, the recent uptick in new book reviews can’t have gone unnoticed. When I recently called up the site, I thought “Blimey! Is Mark doing anything other than reading these days?” However I then noticed by-lines indicating that two of the four most recent reviews were penned by none other than the noted ornithologist Ian Carter acting a as a guest reviewer.