Reviews

"This plunge into the cold water of a mountain pool seems for a brief moment to disintegrate the very self; it is not to be borne: one is lost: stricken: annihilated. Then life pours back."

A book that speeds you straight past "this is beautiful writing" to "I wish I could write like this" within the first few pages. I usually find nature writing difficult to read- it requires so much more concentration and conscious imagination than any other genre. But Nan Shepard is transporting and vivid to the point of drawing physical sensation from me while I read. For the first time in a long while, I've highlighted countless passages and lines.

"Then I gulped the frosty air— I could not contain myself, I jumped up and down, I laughed and shouted. There was the whole plateau, glittering white, within reach of my fingers, an immaculate vision, sun-struck, lifting against a sky of dazzling blue. I drank and drank. I have not yet done drinking that draught. From that hour I belonged to the Cairngorms..."

A note about the edition- I found the foreword overly long (though lovingly written by Robert Macfarlane) and the afterword entirely unnecessary (and generally awful). I don't think Shepard's work needed to be sandwiched between two authors.

farmercolin's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring relaxing fast-paced

4.25

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