Book cover of The Wild Places

Book description

"The Wild Places" is both an intellectual and a physical journey, and Macfarlane travels in time as well as space. Guided by monks, questers, scientists, philosophers, poets and artists, both living and dead, he explores our changing ideas of the wild. From the cliffs of Cape Wrath, to the holloways…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Wild Places as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I have admired Macfarlane’s exquisite prose through book after book, though this book, his second, holds a special place in my heart.

Having lived for 10 years in the UK—on a rather wild peninsula—I have traveled through some of the landscapes the author describes with a passion that is personal, universal, precise, and magical. I share with Macfarlane a love for what he calls “the lost words,” as well as a reverence for words he has “found” in this book: beechwood, moor, river-mouth, ridge, and holloway.

I am drawn instantly to a writer who begins a book with, “The wind…

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Book cover of Sea Sagas of the North: Travels and Tales at Warming Waters

Sea Sagas of the North by Jules Pretty,

Sea Sagas of the North is about story and transformation.

Story is a simple device common to every human culture. Put simply, the patterns of good story match the shapes of our lives. Story was once tales told at every flickering fireside, the children’s faces upturned and wide-eyed. Now it…

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