Bookbag also enjoyed A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson which will appeal to anyone with a passion for wildlife. Of course being a narrative and memoir of someone heavily involved with the natural world there were some elements involving animals that deeply saddened me, the barbarity of nature itself and of man's inhumane treatment of all species of animals so yes though I know the author is just depicting what goes on in the animal world, for me any book that has graphic animal cruelty always loses a point no matter the overall enjoyment I get out of it. I first saw him as a child when he presented children's wildlife programme The Really Wild Show and have enjoyed much of his work since then, including his current role at the helm of the wonderful Springwatch. This memoir simply describes these segments and doesn’t add any kind of reflection to it, even though I wonder how Chris would now view this behaviour.

At times I found it difficult to follow, sometimes it’s written in the first person,sometimes that changes without explanation.This tells of a tortured soul coming to terms with and acceptance of himself as a person diagnosed with Aspergers and even more so as it seemed to affect his whole mind and psyche, the death of his believed kestrel whom he brought up from a chick. But when he stole a young kestrel from its nest, he was about to embark on a friendship that would teach him what it meant to love, and that would change him forever.

There’s lots of Chris’s unhappy school times, unhappy home times, and happier times out with nature. I am equally surprised, as the format of the book is unconventional, confrontational and challenging – everything I needed it to be, but perhaps didn’t expect the readers to enjoy so readily. Seems like an honest insight into the author’s life, a confessional about his struggles with his condition and the liberation he found through punk.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’.