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Review: The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane describes a physical and intellectual journey through the wilder reaches of Britain and Ireland

WILDNESS is as much about a weed struggling through a crack in a pavement as the flight of an eagle across a remote valley. Robert Macfarlane came to this realisation as he researched this book, which celebrates Britain and Ireland’s wild places. Macfarlane is not a scientist and his writing can be overly romantic, yet in this story of his physical and intellectual journey he reveals a scientist’s eye for observation. His descriptions of places he has visited, from windswept moors to ancient sunken walkways, would awaken the amateur ecologist in anyone.

The Wild Places

Robert Macfarlane

Granta