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The author Jules Pretty is based on the Essex and Suffolk border in England. He lives in the Suffolk wool village of Nayland, and works at the University of Essex in Colchester.
He writes on the importance and relevance of nature for people, and explores the relations between people and the land.
Read his blog East Country Almanac & Nature Notes on Facebook or here.

NEW Almanac posts 50-65 here.

Nature Notes 64: Teaching a Stone to Stand

Nature Notes 65: The Night of Spring

Follow the author on Twitter at @JulesPretty1

Also see series of University of Essex vodcasts here on YouTube.

His new book is This Luminous Coast, published by Full Circle Editions in March 2011. It is narration of the land and sea, their wild places, social history and places of deep significance, along the 500 miles of the coasts of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

This Luminous Coast won the East Anglian Book of the Year award for 2011 (Nature and Place category), and was also shortlisted for the Writers' Guild of GB non-fiction book of the year. It has been shortlisted for the New Angle Prize for Literature 2013.

Read two fine reviews of This Luminous Coast in the Times Higher and the Financial Times.

At the University of Essex, Jules Pretty is Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Science & Engineering and Sustainability & Resources. The research focus on green exercise, nature and health is at greenexercise.org. The 2010 dose of nature paper has received considerable coverage worldwide, as has a 2010 paper involving 54 authors on the "Top 100 questions for Agriculture and Food."

His 2007 book of essays is The Earth Only Endures (2007; pb 2009).

He has also written widely on the sustainability of agricultural and food systems in both developing and industrialised countries, and books on these topics include Agri-Culture (2002), The Pesticide Detox (2005), An Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Agriculture (2005), The Living Land (1998), and Regenerating Agriculture (1995). He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture in the UK and overseas.

Further book projects are Walking with Sharks, with a focus on cultural and biological extinctions and revitalisation, and the recent Nature and Culture (2010, ed with Sarah Pilgrim).