The Golden Mole

A lavish edition of Katherine Rundell's gloriously illustrated and fascinating bestiary, featuring three new additions to the treasure trove of vanishing wonders.

'Exquisite and timely.' Maggie O'Farrell

'A rare and magical book. I didn't want it to end.' Bill Bryson

'A witty, intoxicating paean to Earth's wondrous creatures.' Observer

'A total miracle.' Max Porter

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES AND FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings.

A pangolin's tongue is longer than its body. It keeps it furled in a nifty pouch near the hip.

A swift flies 200,000 miles in its lifetime. That's far enough to get to the moon and back -- then back to the moon.

There's a fable that storks deliver babies. In fact, the Nazis used them to air-drop propaganda.

A lavishly illustrated compendium of the staggering lives of some of the world's most endangered animals, this sumptuous, expanded and updated edition of The Golden Mole is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck - to fall for the likes of the wondrous pygmy hippo, the seahorse, the narwhal and, as astonishing and endangered as them all, the human.

Katherine Rundell's book The Golden Mole was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 03-11-2023

Readers love The Golden Mole:

'Sometimes you stumble across a book and you know you'll always treasure it. This is that book!'

'Beautiful in every detail ... a book to go back to time and time again.'

'A love letter to the animals of our world. A beautiful read.'

'Beautifully written, intelligently researched and full of wonder.'

'A most topical and relevant book, beautifully presented and written with depth and humour.'

About the Author

Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, and a quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She is the author of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize; The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure, which was shortlisted for both the Waterstones and Foyles Book of the Year awards, and Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, all of which were Sunday Times bestsellers.

Her award-winning books for children have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold over two million copies world wide. Her most recent children's title, Impossible Creatures, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and winner of the Children's Book of the Year at the 2024 British Book Awards. She has written for, among others, the London Review of Books, the Times literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books and the New York Times, about books, the natural world and night climbing.