New Statesman: Every city-dweller knows the sensation of feeling imprisoned within an urban world of brick and glass. Sometimes it's triggered by a jam-packed thoroughfare in a shopping precinct. Often it is heralded by a crowded train carriage deep underground.
But the next time you find yourself mired in dark thoughts about the soul-blanching impositions of city life, walk straight into the nearest bookshop and buy a copy of Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places, his erudite and exquisitely written follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Mountains of the Mind. The book is balm for the most acute metropolitan malaise. Read the full review in The New Statesman
The Economist: LIKE a medieval holy man, or modern hippie, Robert Macfarlane sets out for the remote parts of the northern and western British isles, sea-sprayed islands, craggy mountains and great bog plains. He wants to experience wildness. There is not an icy pool he will not plunge into or tree he would not climb. He picks up shards of roughened granite and smooth flints and turns them in his hand. He says: “We have in many ways forgotten what the world feels like.” - Full review in the EconomistAlso, reviewed earlier in:
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