If environmental thrillers are for you, then don’t judge this book by its cover

Timber. Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister. Polity, €13.75, Unavailable on Kindle

THIS isn’t a book that goes in for the niceties of fancy design, exotic graphics or beautiful colour plates — though any one of those would have enhanced it. Instead, its design is mundane, its academic look off-putting and its tendency to excrete technical terms relentlessly wearying.

But don’t let that put you off. For here is a powerful story, explosive even. It’s cause celebre is the prevention of the ongoing forest destruction wrought to satiate the bottomless lust for forest products by the West. And as such, exotic design eschewed, it wears its heart on its sleeve.