Although I have had many enjoyable good reads this year, I haven’t had many 5-star ones, so when I was plotting out my nonfiction November titles, I grabbed The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane to add to my TBR, and it did not disappoint. MacFarlane has an amazing knack for writing accessible but lyrical prose, in which he explores the natural world.
The Wild Places asks: Are there any truly wild places left in the UK? MacFarlane sets out to discover if there are. And he finds them in spades – windswept mountain peaks, isolated islands, deserted beaches, and remote tracts of forest. While I am not particularly interested in sleeping outdoors in a snowstorm in the Highlands, he does make me want to dust off my passport and follow in his footsteps.
Along the way, he also examines friendships and mortality, and brings the storyline back to a more personal one, chronicling the death of a dear friend who loved to explore the wild places with him. Filled with evocative descriptions of places well off the beaten path, and the inter connectivity of the world, where the wild and the not-wild intermingle, MacFarlane is at his best here. I loved every moment I spent with this one.
The Emporium of Forgotten Threads 
Leave a comment