Rainbow Dust [Book Review]

Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Delight in British Butterflies
Peter Marren
Vintage, 2016
ISBN: 1784703184

Cover blurb: "Rainbow Dust explores the ways in which butterflies delight and inspire us all, naturalists and non-naturalists alike. Beginning with the author's own experience of hunting and rearing butterflies as a boy, Peter Marren considers the special place of the butterfly in art, literature, advertising and science, and, latterly, our attempts to conserve them. Rainbow Dust takes in the controversy over collecting, the women who studied them and the curious details that lead to butterflies being feared as well as loved. This is a celebration of butterflies; one shot through with a sense of wonder but also of sorrow at what we are losing."

Peter Marren is now a highly respected nature writer best known for the excellent Bugs Britannia and Chasing the Ghost: My Search for all the Wild Flowers of Britain. Although I enjoyed reading Rainbow Dust and learned a lot from it, this is very much in the old school of nature writing, and personally, I enjoyed The Moth Snowstorm more and would recommend that over this book. Nevertheless, Rainbow Dust is still a good read and I recommend it.