Caught by the River poet-in-residence Will Burns will be reading a couple of his short stories at the Faber Social event on 2 September. Ahead of that you can read one for yourself – Verge – on the Faber site.

A Thames poem by Claire Collison on The Island Review.

Tim Dee on the rise of the new nature writing on The National.

Kathleen Jamie reviews Tim Dee’s Four Fields for The Guardian: Four Fields is an enthralling and unexpected book – or four short books – about what we have made of the natural world. The language itself is rich and loamy. There is evidence of much thought here, as well as a naturalist’s profound observation. It is proof that really, there is no such thing as “nature writing” – Dee gives us the wide world and everything in it, including ourselves and all our works.

The folk-musician and storyteller, Sam Amidon, in session on BBC R3’s World on 3 (from 0.33)

Alan Lomax’s Massive Archive Goes Online
Folklorist Alan Lomax spent his career documenting folk music traditions from around the world. Now thousands of the songs and interviews he recorded are available for free online, many for the first time. It’s part of what Lomax envisioned for the collection — long before the age of the Internet. (from NPR Music)

and finally, Ramblin’ Darren Rock, lists his top five passerines on the Ransom Note site. (There’ll be more from Rocky on Caught by the River later this week).