Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

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The pensive reader slowly turned the crisp pages of his virgin untouched book and though apprehensive he presently found the word writing of the storyman overloaded with all the worst in the books he knew he was too smart to read. Chris brings to life his childhood in the 1970s, from his bedroom bursting with birds' eggs and jam jars, to his feral adventures. Informative and heart-breaking in equal measure, and graced with a punk sensibility and wry sense of humour, Fingers in the Sparkle Jar is a work of great originality which pushes at the boundaries of the nature writing genre’. I can understand not wanting to include his television work if this is a memoir about strictly his personal life. I am a huge wildlife lover and think Chris Packham is brilliant at what he does on screen and his incredible knowledge of the natural world astounds me.

Knowing that the camera on my phone wasn’t working I still got my other half to pretend to take a picture of Chris and me, so I could get right up close to him! He was also fascinated by dinosaurs and amassed an incredible amount of knowledge about his favourite subject. Enjoy it – and (as I was too ridiculously awkward and shy to do so at the march) – say Hi to Chris for me ! But the creature he most coveted was a kestrel, a real live kestrel, and one day he was to realise that dream. Chris Packham's memoir Fingers in the Sparkle Jar is a brutal, beautiful book that subverts the memoir genre through third person accounts of events involving him.His writing is poetic, lyrical and beautiful, even when writing about commonplace events such as an encounter with the local ice-cream man. The descriptions of nature, wildlife and the countryside brims with his passion for his favoured subjects. These were selected by a panel of experts from more than 270 titles nominated by the public last year.

With this memoir Chris has succeeded in attracting readers who would perhaps not usually pick up a ‘nature book’. Memories from Chris’ childhood explorations are captured with such intense devotion and curiosity, I found it so charming, heartbreaking, and inspiring.Blend ‘A Kestrel for a Knave‘ with ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning‘ and then dim the lights to make it darker and that’s where this book takes you. At the centre of the book is his relationship with the kestrel he kept; this reminded me of the excellent H is for Hawk.