I could identify with all the little retro things he spoke about concerning obsolete brands and TV programmes that were all the rage.

And again whilst I liked the switching viewpoint thing I found that a little confusing at times as you end up trying to work out where Packham actually is in the text.I remember Chris Packham from his "Really wild show" days when I was a kid and had no idea he had Aspergers. Fingers in the Sparkle Jar is a truly beautiful, honest account of growing up with Asperger’s and in love with nature, when everyone around you wasn’t. Loved Dara’s review and the book itself bits of it were hard to read but it was well worth the effort Chris laid a lot of himself bare for all to see in this book and it is all the better for it, not sure though that I could do that, not in written form anyway. I couldn't take him seriously knowing the words he wrote down and sent out for everyone to read and say "yes, this is what Chris Packham is like". This tells of a tortured soul coming to terms with and acceptance of himself as a person diagnosed with Aspergers and even more so as it seemed to affect his whole mind and psyche, the death of his believed kestrel whom he brought up from a chick.

If you are expecting a book of rather sweet wildlife tales from your favourite TV personality then this book may not be for you. I do ultimately aim to just read or comment appropriately but then, like this – I just go on one instead !

It's not even just written in the third person, much of it is from the imagined point of view of the people around the author. It's a pretty dark read with themes of suicide and the like and Packham ends up killing most things he comes into contact with. Everything seemed alive in that scintillating moment and as the gleams gyrated and glittered I imagined I could see their tiny twinkling hearts, seeding the sparks that made them so very vivid. What I especially enjoyed about this memoir was the feel of a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies. I’d like to tell you that you will enjoy it – you might, but I am sure you will be moved by it and get a lot out of it.

Despite this, I am incredibly glad that Chris Packham found such an incredible love in wildlife that is still going. As usual, I have much less to say about a book that provoked a predominantly emotional rather than intellectual response. The reader does get a good idea of what it was like to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s and what it's like to suffer with Asperger's, but this is more about Packham than the wildlife he interacts with. I’m not a fan of overly detailed descriptions if I feel they don’t suit a purpose, and that combined with repetitive segments about his love of animals made this difficult to get through at times. Chris Packham, well-known TV presenter and wildlife expert, takes us back to his childhood in 1960s Southampton, and we meet a curious child who doesn't quite fit in to the societal norm.I was looking forward to getting an insight into how Chris grew up with Aspergers and how his love for the natural world grew. Seems like an honest insight into the author’s life, a confessional about his struggles with his condition and the liberation he found through punk. He is a talented speaker and nobody but him could possibly have read the lines with such perfection. As an adult, Chris was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which may explain his social awkwardness as a child and intense obsession with nature; an obsession that he managed to forge into a successful career.

Within all these different forms of writing the chapters are divided by recurring themes (‘the bird’) or newly introduced ones.

OK Licensing might be introduced but many know that will not work and the corporate carnage will continue and then eventually the reasonable folk prepared to compromise (which would have been many of us until we woke up to the real reality) will see the light and sense will prevail through democracy (we are led to believe that we live in a democracy)? I am a huge wildlife lover and think Chris Packham is brilliant at what he does on screen and his incredible knowledge of the natural world astounds me. The boy (nearly always a boy) who was the clever geek, no friends, rarely spoke, terrible at PE, hair, clothes and shoes always wrong, often badly bullied or ignored. I know you both get lots of flack from the dark side, since our filming I have been banished from the one moor where I thought we could make real progress, so perhaps the owner wasn’t really on board. Parts of the book, especially those that deal with a suicide attempt, are upsetting and difficult to read.