Discover more about Lee Raye’s favourite literary picks, from Scottish Gaelic literature to books on changing wildlife
Lee Raye is an academic who writes on the history of wildlife. Their latest book, Creatures of Story and Song, remembers what it was like in Britain when people used to live alongside wolves, whales and great auks.
Below are some of their favourite reads…
The History of British Mammals (1999) By Derek Yalden
With this book and the companion volume, Yalden inspired me and so many others to start researching the history of wildlife.
A Medieval Book of Beasts (2006) By Willene B Clark
A book that demonstrates that what we think of as the medieval ‘bestiary’ is actually a whole genre of different texts.
Duanaire na Sracaire (2007) Edited by Wilson McLeod & Meg Bateman
Here, 1,000 years of Scottish Gaelic literature are made easily accessible for scholars of literature and history.
Silent Fields (2007) By Roger Lovegrove
After years spent searching dusty old parish records, Lovegrove performed a strange quantitative alchemy and produced his book with the most fascinating stories about our changing wildlife.
Extinctions and Invasions (2010) Edited by Terry O’Connor & Naomi Jane Sykes
A book that shouldn’t have been possible – every chapter is written by one of the great zooarchaeologists of our time.
The Toad and the Donkey (2011) Edited by Geraint Jennings & Yan Marquis
Similar to the previous book, but based on the literature of the Channel Islands – a final vestige of the culture of the Norman Conquest.
Medieval Pets (2012) By Kathleen Walker-Meikle
The book that proves that animal history research can be written for a wide audience without losing a drop of its academic rigour.
Reading the World (2025) By Edwin D Rose
A book that shows what can be achieved by studying the unpublished index cards and marginalia of 18th-century naturalists.
