Sapiens

Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari is my new favourite read. Gill told me about it after hearing something on Radio Four and it seemed right up my street so I ordered a copy. It arrived yesterday.

The early chapters cover a lot of the stuff I researched for my History of Work but our knowledge of early societies has moved on quite a bit since that was written and Harari has put it together wonderfully. It seems apposite that just as Gill and I are doing quite a bit of foraging, the early chapters cover that time before the agrarian revolution and help to explain why foraging can prove so satisfying to people today. It's because it's what we did deep in our ancestry, or not so deep when you realise that agricultural and industrial society has occupied a relatively short timescale in human history.

The ceps and chanterelles we picked earlier in the week must have been genuine since Gill used them in a cracking risotto yesterday and we're still here. I went out to look for some more chanterelles today but the red flags were flying on the ranges where I found them. The woods are not quite damp enough yet but that meant they were dry enough for the odd butterfly like this Speckled Wood. Looking at last year's blip from this day, I guess we'll have to have fried dog again.