Amanda Davey

ALLi Author Member

Location: United Kingdom (the)

Genres: General Nonfiction, Academic, Art & Crafts, Biography, Narrative Nonfiction, Illustrated/Photography, Humour, Memoir, History, Nature/Science, Children's general

Skills: Speaking Engagement/Lecture, Reading/Literary Event, Press/Media Interview

I am the author of a number of books with the combined aim of entertaining and engaging my readers with the world in which they live. This is the deep core of my writing, and a particular delight is to trigger surprise and fun. Care for the natural world is also important.

I believe in the maxim that truth is stranger than fiction and love the entertainment that this can provide both in bringing it to the page but most particularly in encouraging readers to see things in a different way. My training is as a landscape architect and a geographer which means a very broad base of interests and subjects.

The topics are varied. There's a book on cuddly team members, a book on true and entertaining stories of garden wildlife, I am also co-author of the book The Lichens of Jersey and editor for the civil engineering autobiography It's Warmer Down Below. Forthcoming in 2022 is a book on the churches of the South Downs National Park.

Amanda Davey's books

It's Warmer Down Below: the autobiography of Sir Harold Harding, 1900-1986

This is the autobiography of a high profile civil engineer who was regularly the go-to voice for the Channel Tunnel in the 1960s and 1970s, lobbying for one to be built up to the last 2 weeks of his life, when he found out it had been commissioned. He sat on the Aberfan Tribunal, tunnelled a great deal under London, was the founding Chairman of the British Tunnelling Society and an international arbitrator for bridges and tunnel sites around the world. A Director of Mowlem and President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he wrote with a pithy wit and structural simplicity and it was a pleasure to edit his book.

Freckles and Friends: true stories of garden wildlife

Freckles was a newly fledged robin who chose to learn how to sing by sitting in a very small oak tree above an ancient cat who could no longer hunt but really didn't like other cats coming near. His song was remarkable and yet on the edge of sound. Other stories include a naughty squirrel called Atlas, some wrens who nested in a roofspace, frogs who preferred newspaper to lily leaves and a clockwork lobster in a moth trap. All stories are true, why would you ever need to make them up!

The Lichens of Jersey

This book covers the lichens that can be found on the island of Jersey, Channel Islands, their habitats and the history of lichenology in Jersey. It is in full colour to celebrate the role of a Jerseyman, Charles du Bois Larbalestier in the finding and getting named a significant proportion of lichen species found worldwide, through his exploration of Jersey, the Channel Islands and also Kylemore in Ireland in particular. Co-written with Simon Davey

Meet the Team: the roles played by 'our gang'

Working for yourself means having a restricted team base, but there are other characters that help cheer the day. Meet the Team is 22 mini biographies of our cuddly and maybe not so cuddly smiley team members. It is intended to trigger laughter and enjoyment in adult children who have never grown up

Loading...