Sunday 21 February 2010

Wild Places




I blogged about Robert Macfarlane's latest book last week - here's a review of it ...

Review
Bill McKibben (Author of THE END OF NATURE) "This book is an eloquent (and compulsively readable) reminder that, though we're laying waste the world, nature still holds sway over much of the earth's surface, even in a place as crowded and civilized as Britain. I found it one of the most oddly comforting books I've read in a long long time" Iain Sinclair "A driven and necessary account of the wild places of these islands, near or remote, as they can be located and possessed within ourselves: in good heart, in hungry intelligence. Rich, sinewy prose to set on the shelf alongside works by Roger Deakin, Richard Mabey, Tim Robinson" Rebecca Solnit "Robert Macfarlane's extraordinary first book took a stance against the conventionally heroic; his second as boldly celebrates places that aren't supposed to exist. And The Wild Places does so in prose that is at times very nearly as vivid and beautiful as the thing itself: in his sentences there are sudden clearings, shafts of light, unexpected crossroads of ideas, views opening into the distance, close-ups of important flora and fauna. The book strides along through places, histories and ideas with a distance-walker's gait and a nature lover's pauses" Jan Morris "A lovely book by a sublimely civilized writer - honest nourishment for the mind and true enhancement for the spirit" Will Self "A beautifully modulated call from the wild, that will ensorcell any urban prisoner wishing to break free"


I'm strongly tempted by Macfarlane's Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination too. He seems to be very turned on and tuned in.

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