Welcome to The ForEm - Part fête. Part exhibition. Part experiment. The ForEm asks deceptively simple questions: What makes Frome, Frome? And who gets to decide what comes next? The ForEm invites people to explore the stories they tell about the town: its independence, creativity and community spirit, and also its challenges, contradictions and changing […]
Consider the Wondrous opens with festival Director Gareth Howell-Jones explaining how Consider the Wondrous came about, why it’s in Frome, what it is for, and what he hopes the project can begin to achieve. He’ll talk too about the simple but radical way of looking squarely at nature that underpins his books Do Not Call […]
“As cities grow, the danger is not only ecological but emotional... If we want a future that is not only liveable but meaningful, we must learn to care differently. That begins by paying attention – to the cracks in the pavements, the stories in trees, the silence that follows loss.” JC Niala Did you know […]
Horatio has always been a lover and close observer of nature. In 2018 he had a mental breakdown; he was fully, psychotically delusional. He wrote about that experience with great bravery in Heavy Light, and a wonderfully generous and informative guide to mental health and the paths to recovery in Your Journey, Your Way. Mental health is […]
Rosa grew up in Peru with the rainforest as her back garden, learning its lessons from her grandmother, a native healer in natural medicine. Now as a biologist and conservationist, she re-explores the Amazon with a unique blend of scientific enquiry and ancient insight.In her book The Spirit of the Rainforest, we meet pink dolphins, […]
In Wilderlands, the archaeologist Eloise Kane takes us on a fascinating and unfamiliar tour through 12,000 years of our history. When the glaciers finally retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, our ancestors crossed the land-bridge from the continent and reinhabited these islands. There have been humans here ever since - working the land, […]
An unmissable conversation between two great bird enthusiasts. Jon Gower has loved birds since one of his collier grandfather’s canaries hatched in the palm of his hand. In Birdland, he travels Britain from Portland Bill to the Hebrides in search of kittiwakes, bustards and turtle doves as well as a remarkable cast of characters – poets, […]
A gala evening of words and music inspired by the natural world. End the day with flowing jazz, beauty, poignancy and rapture. From earliest times, human art and music has celebrated and sought to understand the mysterious world around us. We’re thrilled to have such a stellar line-up for this gala where human creativity reflects […]
In The Savage Landscape Cal Flyn goes in search of wildness "because I wanted to live my life more intensely... tap into a rawer, more authentic, more capable, part of myself." She meets gorillas in Uganda, blue sheep in Nepal, and writes luminously in terror and fascination of the new world created in front of […]
We're privileged to host this conversation between two of the most generous-minded thinkers concerned with the natural world. Mark Cocker is one of our leading naturalists. He leads courses in nature watching and writing (and will also be leading a guided nature walk earlier in the day here at Consider the Wondrous). His new book […]
We're constantly badgered to do more, to aim higher, to make the most of our time. Our phones and social media, which pose as a break from work, only keep our minds over-stimulated and anxious. In The Brain at Rest, Joseph Jebelli explains why stress is so damaging and introduces us to the brain's 'default […]
Our hope is that Consider the Wondrous can help us to rethink our place on the planet, as one remarkable species among so many others. So, it's fitting that our final event this year should show something as commonplace as trees in a radically different light. It's easy to think of trees as noble, beautiful […]
