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 that are broader and bigger and more important
than ever. Cox's writing treads a new path, one that has a lot in common
with a rambling country walk; it's bewitched by fresh air and big skies,
intrepid in minor ways, haunted by weather and old stories and the
spooky edges of the outdoors, restless and prone to a few detours, and
always reaches its destination in the end.
