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camprocter's review
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
A great anthology that's well worth taking your time with. I often find that I struggle to connect to classical nature writing; I love nature and I love being outside, but I cannot always relate to what is being written. This book was published in 2020 though, and it deals with topics related to climage change and ecological decline. These things definitely impact how we currently see and interact with these landscapes, and as such, I found that I strongly connected to most (if not all) of this writing. It's brutally sad in places, but hopeful in others. To quote from Malachy Tallack: "To come to know it, as we have, is to see the ways in which it is vulnerable. To come to love it, as we have, is to encounter worry."
Some favourites: Getting the Hang of the Wind by Chris Powici, The Wasp's Byke by Jacqueline Bain, Three Meditations on Absence in Nature and Life by Chitra Ramaswamy, Lunar Cycling by Linda Cracknell, I Da Welk Ebb by Jen Hadfield, What We Talk About When We Talk About Solastalgia by Malachy Tallack, The Ruling Class by Jess Smith, Find the Ground by Karine Polwat, and Swimming Away from My Baby by Amy Liptrot.
Some favourites: Getting the Hang of the Wind by Chris Powici, The Wasp's Byke by Jacqueline Bain, Three Meditations on Absence in Nature and Life by Chitra Ramaswamy, Lunar Cycling by Linda Cracknell, I Da Welk Ebb by Jen Hadfield, What We Talk About When We Talk About Solastalgia by Malachy Tallack, The Ruling Class by Jess Smith, Find the Ground by Karine Polwat, and Swimming Away from My Baby by Amy Liptrot.
aikematilde's review
5.0
Saw this collection at a bookshop in Utrecht last week and couldn't leave it behind. Read it breathlessly since Friday and what a treat! I underlined (lots), reminisced, looked up on the map and imagined.
Kathleen Jamie, the editor of this anthology, writes that “.. what makes our nature writing ‘new’, is our increasing awareness of the unfolding ecological crisis.” The book celebrates beautiful places in Scotland but pays as much attention to the environment, to politics, the climate crisis. Prose, poetry, essay, photography and poetic nonfiction take you wild swimming, to a wind farm in a moor, into deep time, on walks that don’t happen, among the stags, out to the islands. The incredible beauty is in the language, the emotional connection to the land, the gorgeous minuscule observations, the recognition of a shared experience.
From ‘.. the tender pannacotta of the mudflats’ (140) and the ‘fields and forests [that] cascaded in slow, geological waves down to the shore’ (40) to swimming inside a cloud (269), I love writing like this & I love Scotland.
Kathleen Jamie, the editor of this anthology, writes that “.. what makes our nature writing ‘new’, is our increasing awareness of the unfolding ecological crisis.” The book celebrates beautiful places in Scotland but pays as much attention to the environment, to politics, the climate crisis. Prose, poetry, essay, photography and poetic nonfiction take you wild swimming, to a wind farm in a moor, into deep time, on walks that don’t happen, among the stags, out to the islands. The incredible beauty is in the language, the emotional connection to the land, the gorgeous minuscule observations, the recognition of a shared experience.
From ‘.. the tender pannacotta of the mudflats’ (140) and the ‘fields and forests [that] cascaded in slow, geological waves down to the shore’ (40) to swimming inside a cloud (269), I love writing like this & I love Scotland.
funktious's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
5.0
If you love Scotland, and enjoy Nature Writing, you will enjoy this book.