Boria Sax – författare

Lizards stimulate the human imagination, despite generally being small, soundless and hidden from sight in burrows, treetops or crevices. They can blend into a vast range of environments, from rocky coasts to deserts and rainforests. Their fluid motion can make us think of water, while their curvilinear forms suggest vegetation. Their stillness appears deathlike, while their sudden arousal is like resurrection. Lizards are at once overhyped and underappreciated. Our storybooks are full of lizards, but we usually call them something else – dragons, serpents or monsters. Our tales vastly increase their size, bestow wings upon them, make them exhale flame and endow them with magical powers. This illuminating book demonstrates how the story of lizards is interwoven with the history of the human imagination. Boria Sax describes the diversity of lizards and traces their representation in many cultures, including those of pre-conquest Australia, the Quiché Maya, Mughal India, China, Central Africa, Europe and America. Filled with beguiling images, Lizard is essential reading for natural history enthusiasts, students of animal studies and the many thousands of people who keep lizards as pets.

Avian Illuminations examines the many roles birds have played in human society, from food, messengers, deities and pets, to omens, muses, timekeepers, custodians, hunting companions, decorative motifs and, most importantly, embodiments of our aspirations. It narrates the history of our relationships with a host of birds including crows, owls, parrots, falcons, eagles, nightingales, hummingbirds, and many more. Along the way the book describes how birds’ nesting has symbolised human romance, how their flight has inspired inventors throughout history, and concludes by showing that the interconnections between birds and humans are so manifold that a world without birds would effectively mean an end to human culture itself. Beautifully illustrated, this is a superb overview of our long and rich association with our feathered friends.

Tales throughout the world generally place fabulous beasts in marginal locations – deserts, deep woods, remote islands, glaciers, ocean depths, mountain peaks, caves, swamps, heavenly bodies and alternate universes. Legends tell us that imaginary animals belong to a primordial time, before we had encompassed the world with names, categories and scientific knowledge.This book traces the history of imaginary animals from Palaeolithic art to the Harry Potter stories, and beyond. It shows how imagined creatures help us psychologically, giving form to our subconscious fears as ‘monsters’, as well as embodying our hopes as ‘wonders’. Nevertheless, their greatest service may be to continually challenge our imaginations, directing us beyond the limitations of our conventional beliefs and expectations.

In 1985 Boria Sax inherited an area of forest in New York State that had been purchased by his Russian, Jewish Communist grandparents as a buffer against what they felt was a hostile world. For Sax, in the years following, the woodland came to represent a link with those who lived and had lived there, including Native Americans, settlers, bears, deer, turtles and migrating birds.In this personal and eloquent account, Sax explores the meanings and cultural history of forests from prehistory to the present, taking in Gilgamesh, Virgil, Dante, the Gawain poet, medieval alchemists, the Brothers Grimm, the Hudson River painters, Latin American folklore, contemporary African novelists and much more. Combining lyricism with contemporary scholarship, Sax opens new emotional, intellectual and environmental perspectives on the storied history of the forest.

From ancient fables to modern science, insects and their metamorphoses have long inspired human understanding of life’s transitions. This original and engaging book traces how these transformations have shaped rituals around birth, marriage and death, while also provoking deep questions about identity. Through stories that connect Zhuang Zhou’s butterfly dream to figures such as Kafka, Merian and Dürer, it explores the strange, beautiful and sometimes unsettling ways in which cultures have understood insects – as miracles, messengers or monsters. Blending humour, history and environmental insight, Boria Sax offers an imaginative lens on the growing crisis of insect extinction. More than just a natural history, this is a cultural and philosophical journey that shows why losing insects means losing part of ourselves.