Speaking candidly about his depression, anxiety and family illnesses that envelop like the squalls he’s witnessed, and willing to admit the sighting of the year’s first swift brings him to tears, Roberts recounts his travels, once-in-a-lifetime close encounters with amazing animals in the wild, and of his special love of birds from curlews, ravens and starlings to others the general public likely wouldn’t recognise. This debut book of non-fiction is also self-illustrated using a simple combination of ink, salt and water. The author draws comfort from little valley churches and woods, delights in comets and waterfalls, and his tranquil prose is enchanting. James' debut memoir Two Lights: Walking through Landscapes of Loss and Life (March 2023) is a beautiful meditation on the years he has spent walking near his home in Wales at dawn and dusk in search of true wilderness, as we hear of the concerning decline in biodiversity around us. He also shares his experience of walking in true wilderness across the world and the importance of truly wild spaces for us all. This could be my imagination at work, projecting them on to this emptied place where centuries ago wolves hunted and, before them, lions. We are all, at the last, just fading shapes in the memories of others.’ I bought the book - I always try to buy books and CDs by people I know (and I've known his wife Julia since we were on the Fairtrade committee together). As we started at dawn, we finish at dusk, the time of day which Roberts loves the most. He offers us snapshots of landscapes and the life held within them, some beautiful, some not so. But wonder of the world is still present. And again, the birds are everywhere. We fly with egret, buzzard, raven and gannet as the light fades until there are no colours.

A meditative and hopeful account of walking through the wild, shifting landscapes of Wales, at all hours of the day and night, and often through times of personal darkness, in search of connection with the earth and its creatures. Roberts’ reflections on the healing power of watching nature change are sensitively expressed, with beautiful, often stark illustrations.’ The TabletJames spent many years working in the design industry. He has worked as a technologist, editor, art-director, graphic designer, content writer and illustrator. He was publisher of Zoomorphic Magazine for several years. He also teaches workshops for other creatives, scientists and activists. His art and illustrations have featured in several galleries and exhibitions, as well as in theatres, magazines and books.

Of course, in Britain, there’s not much forest left to burn, its 13% coverage the lowest in Europe, its nearly-extinguished wildlife among the most impoverished in the world.

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Roberts shows us this world through the lens of dawn and dusk, the two lights which mark the beginning and the end of each day. Starting at dawn, we follow this light, travelling through Russia, Mongolia, Indonesia, the Alps, flying with crested auklets, puffins, golden eagles, Arctic terns and stilts, until we arrive at his home in Wales, where ‘…the last stars are fading out of an indigo sky. On the horizon is a band of burnt orange graduating to turquoise. Strand of cloud hang like tail feathers.’ In this lyrical and moving book, James Roberts weaves close observation of nature and place intertwined with memoir and science, with a heart-felt analysis of the predicament facing the natural world, the world we are continuing to destroy. He write of a lived experience, past and present, with an eye towards the future. The loss of his father, the illness of his wife, alongside the grief he feels at the loss of the natural world, permeates his writing, even when he’s not talking about them directly. There’s a bittersweet quality running alongside his at times poetic prose. And at the end, there’s an almost acceptance of his depression.

Roberts walks the bare hills and valleys of Wales, recalling “the forest of my imagination … hiding beneath my feet, in these hills, waiting to regrow.” The trees were cleared thousands of years ago, the first people of Britain burning gaps in the forest to make way for their fields. Now:A beautiful, vivid work … [His] writing is lyrical, empathetic and keenly observed – there is joy as well as sorrow in his words and a reminder to savour the beauty that remains in this world.’ Western Daily Mail Two Lights: walking through landscapes of loss and life by James Roberts is published by September Publishing Not just in the title of this chapter, but appearing and calling their unique, sorrowful call throughout the book, is the curlew, which becomes, to him, a symbol of the extinction crisis.

Discussing personal grief and anxiety is something that Roberts doesn’t shy away from. As a child, he suffered from anxiety and hypersensitivity, emotions he continues to feel now. He compares his depression to the weather. If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us James Roberts will head out to his garden in the summer at 4 am to watch the stars fade as the sun begins to rise. As the light increases, the birds begin to wake, singing to celebrate the dawn, rooks launching into the air to survive another day. He needs those few minutes in the morning or evening each day for his own internal daily reset.You might think that with global warming, deforestation, overfishing, soil erosion, draining of wetlands, damming of rivers, pesticides, pollution, growth of cities, nights so bright with streetlights that citydwellers never see more than half-a-dozen stars, nights without nightingales, corn without cornflowers, meadows without meadowsweet, hedges without “immemorial elms”, roadsides without primroses, garden Buddleia bushes without butterflies, the extinction of species… that we would need no reminding that we have lost something. There is something about the twilight that allows the past to slip into view more clearly, the way that this day has slipped over the horizon with its tail still visible. I'd assumed that I was going to a book launch for a book of poetry. James Roberts is a poet, after all, and the launch was being held at the Poetry Bookshop.