Spring is the time of renewal and rebirth, a celebration of the resilience of life.

As the year turns, animals and plants that have struggled to survive the winter find new hope and create the next generation. The season has inspired some of humanity’s greatest art and many of its most significant religious festivals. Now, in Spring is the Only Season, Simon Barnes provides a fresh and compelling look at this period of the year.

He explains the science of the seasons, which are caused by the planet’s 23.5 degree tilt; he also highlights the music, the paintings and the poetry that have tried to capture it. Packed with fascinating insights, remarkable facts and key stories, the book is a vivid and multi-faceted portrait of spring. However, while the Earth will continue to spin on its tilting axis, he reveals how our impact on the planet is beginning to destroy the natural course of the seasons, and that elements of the beloved spring – from migrating birds to emerging butterflies – are endangered by climate change.

But it’s not too late. Not yet. We can still make a difference and so continue to enjoy the pleasures of spring.

‘A book that filled me from first to last with a rapture as transcendent and thrilling as that which spring yearly provides … I absolutely adored it!’ Stephen Fry

‘As dynamic and ebullient as the season it celebrates … There is no one I’d rather spring into spring with than Simon Barnes’ Kate Humble