How to Catch a Mole: Wisdom from a Life Lived in Nature

In this evocative and heart-wrenching memoir, a hard-working Welsh molecatcher reveals his double life as a poet and a dreamer• “A wonderful memoir … hands down the most charming book I read last year.”—Margaret Renkl, The New York Times“How to Catch a Mole is a small book of many things. In quiet, crystalline prose, it blends memoir, keen observations of nature, and ruminations about life, aging and death.”—Wall Street JournalKneeling in a muddy field in the Welsh countryside, clutching a creature that is soft and blue-black, Marc Hamer vows he will stop trapping moles—forever. In this earnest, understated, and sublime work of literary memoir, the molecatcher shares what led him to this strange career and what caused him to stop: from sleeping among hedges as a homeless teen, to toiling on the railway, to weeding windswept gardens in Wales and witnessing the beauty of every living thing.Hamer infuses his wanderings with radiant poetry and stark, simple observations on nature’s oft-ign