Overview

'This is a book about searching in the best sense – full of ideas, beauty, doubt and adventures' ELIZABETH KOLBERT 'Fascinating and masterfully written' ALICE WINN From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Islands of Abandonment, comes a new book about our relationship to the natural world. This book takes us into the wild – deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It addresses our deep yearnings to be awed and inspired by landscapes that remain beyond our reach and examines what nature gets up to in the absence of humans. In 10 chapters, each loosely structured around a visit to some of the world’s wildest and most invigorating landscapes, the book asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might best be appreciated or preserved. These locations have been chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation, and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In this search for wilderness, we will meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds seeing off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks. 'A book that takes you into the wild and ignites the imagination. Compelling and thought provoking, Flyn’s journey into the heart of the matter challenges us to rethink the relationship between human culture and nature' SUE STUART SMITH 'The Savage Landscape enthralled me—leading me spellbound through our encounters with and imaginings of wilderness and its many faces. In Flyn’s hands, a deeply researched history is given vibrant, propulsive life' JESSICA J LEE

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9780008686536

Table of Contents

Reviews

'A profound and extraordinary book. Rich in detail, this book is a superb blend of geography, natural history, myth and religion, environmental science and cultural studies … The Savage Landscape is as vivid as the mesopelagic waters Cal Flyn so evocatively describes, as diverse as the flora and fauna of New Guinea … This book is one of the best books I have read in years’ Annie Worsley, author of Windswept ‘Cal Flyn examines our relationship with the wild places of the earth–and the meaning of wilderness itself–with an unflinching eye. The Savage Landscape is a beguiling book: by turns lyrical, learned, and provocative’ Ed Caesar, author of The Moth and the Mountain 'Cal Flyn goes looking for answers to a troublesome question: What is wilderness? The Savage Landscape is a book about searching in the best sense – full of ideas, beauty, doubt and adventures' Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction ‘Profound, exhilarating, and suffused with nuanced wit and insight. The Savage Landscape is essential and deeply rewarding reading for all who seek to understand the wild in our psyches and in the world… A must-read: put this book on the top of your list’ David George Haskell, author of How Flowers Made our World 'Fascinating and masterfully written, Cal Flyn’s The Savage Landscape is an exploration of wildness in both nature and humankind. Brilliant!' Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam ‘A thrilling, tender, acute tour through the wildernesses of the world outside us and the far wilder worlds inside … Flyn is the perfect guide.’ Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast and The Edges of the World ‘Cal Flyn is one of the most exciting writers around … This book is at once thrilling adventure and bracing meditation.’ Pico Iyer, author of The Half Known Life 'A truly epic exploration of the world which we all inhabit. A book like this, so deftly written, has the power to remake our relationship with the natural world.' Rebecca Smith, author of Rural

PRAISE FOR ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT THE SUNDAY TIMES’ BESTSELLER AND SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT CONSERVATION AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE ‘A haunting look at how nature fights back … Beautiful, evocative’ Sunday Times ‘Exhilarating … A story of the extraordinary resilience of life in some of the most desolate, ravaged and polluted landscapes on earth’ Daily Telegraph ‘Fascinating and brain-energising. It is full of detail and colour that sends one googling, to look up pictures and find out more. It is also an optimistic book … I’ll cling to that bit of unfashionable hope’ The Times ‘Brave, thorough … The result is fascinating, eerie and strange … There is some thrilling writing here, a fine way with the telling detail, and a plea for radical revisioning of what we mean by “nature” and “wild”’ Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman ‘Consistently rewarding, eloquently provocative … a brave book, in more ways than one’ New Humanist ‘Scintillating … she writes beautifully … Flyn's research is meticulous, but what makes the book so extraordinary is the originality of her thought’ The Herald ‘A thoughtful, fascinating read’ Independent ‘Brilliant … Flyn paints vivid pictures … both clear and compelling’ Daily Telegraph, five stars ‘Filled with understanding and adventure … Written with a beautiful attention to detail and a generous and imaginative frame of mind. The wonderful and surprising thing is how much reassurance and sense of possibility comes out of it at every turn’ Adam Nicolson ‘Certainly a book of the year for me’ Sebastian Faulks

PRAISE FOR ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT THE SUNDAY TIMES’ BESTSELLER AND SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT CONSERVATION AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE ‘A haunting look at how nature fights back … Beautiful, evocative’ Sunday Times ‘Exhilarating … A story of the extraordinary resilience of life in some of the most desolate, ravaged and polluted landscapes on earth’ Daily Telegraph ‘Fascinating and brain-energising. It is full of detail and colour that sends one googling, to look up pictures and find out more. It is also an optimistic book … I’ll cling to that bit of unfashionable hope’ The Times ‘Brave, thorough … The result is fascinating, eerie and strange … There is some thrilling writing here, a fine way with the telling detail, and a plea for radical revisioning of what we mean by “nature” and “wild”’ Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman ‘Consistently rewarding, eloquently provocative … a brave book, in more ways than one’ New Humanist ‘Scintillating … she writes beautifully … Flyn's research is meticulous, but what makes the book so extraordinary is the originality of her thought’ The Herald ‘A thoughtful, fascinating read’ Independent ‘Brilliant … Flyn paints vivid pictures … both clear and compelling’ Daily Telegraph, five stars ‘Filled with understanding and adventure … Written with a beautiful attention to detail and a generous and imaginative frame of mind. The wonderful and surprising thing is how much reassurance and sense of possibility comes out of it at every turn’ Adam Nicolson ‘Certainly a book of the year for me’ Sebastian Faulks

Author Information

Cal Flyn is a freelance journalist from the Highlands of Scotland. She has been a reporter for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, and a contributing editor at The Week magazine. She has been published in the New Statesman, The Observer, The Independent, Telegraph Magazine and FT Weekend, and won the 2013 Brandt/Independent on Sunday travel writing prize. THICKER THAN WATER is her first book.

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