The Wild Places

Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed, and built ourselves out of wilderness. Macfarlane, author of prizewinning debut ‘Mountains of the Mind’, has established himself as a writer of both lyrical elegance and precision; he has also acquired a reputation as a passionate and acute observer of the natural world. Here he embarks on a series of beautifully described journeys in search of the wilderness that remains in these islands.

His journeys take him through some of the most remarkable landscapes of our archipelago. He climbs, walks, and swims through these places in rainstorm, sunlight, and blizzard, by darkness and by day, in all seasons. He spends nights sleeping on cliff-tops and remote beaches, deep in snowy woods, on pilgrim islands, mountain summits, and ancient meadows. He bathes in phosphorescent seas, walks frozen rivers at night, and watches a red sun rise over an Arctic England. In the course of his journeys, Macfarlane’s own understanding of wilderness undergoes a transformation.

Winner 2007 Boardman-Tasker Mountaineering Literature Award, 2008 Scottish Arts Council Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award and 2009 Finalist Orion Book Award