'A rare and magical book. I didn't want it to end.' Bill Bryson ' A total miracle.' Max Porter 'A witty, intoxicating paean to Earth's wondrous creatures.' Observer 'Rundell's pen is gold-tipped.' Sunday Times ** SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR ** The world is more astonishing, more miraculous and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this passionately persuasive and sharply funny book, Katherine Rundell tells us how and why. A lavishly illustrated collection of the lives of some of the Earth's most astounding animals, The Golden Mole is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck - to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness. A swift flies two million kilometres in its lifetime. That's far enough to get to the moon and back twice over - and then once more to the moon. A pangolin keeps its tongue furled in a pouch by its hip, a Greenland shark can live five hundred years, a wombat once inspired a love poem.