21st-Century Yokel

21st-Century Yokel is not quite nature writing, not quite a family memoir, not quite a book about walking, not quite a collection of humorous essays, but a bit of all five. Thick with owls and badgers, oak trees and wood piles, scarecrows and ghosts, and Tom Cox's loud and excitable dad, this book is full of the folklore of several counties—the ancient kind and the everyday variety—as well as wild places, mystical spots, and curious objects. Emerging from this focus on the detail are themes...