Name: The Living Mountain
ISBN: 9781786897350

Nan Shepherd

A beautiful, collectible gift edition of quintessential Scottish nature writing. Introduced by Robert Macfarlane and with an afterword by Jeanette Winterson

A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland

The Living Mountain

Laura Dobie

Bastien Vaucher

Those who have travelled in high mountains or to the poles are likely to be familiar with the white-out: the point at which snow, cloud and blizzard combine such that the world dissolves into a single pallor. Scale and distance become impossible to discern. There are no shadows or waymarks. Space is depthless. Even gravity's hold feels loosened: slope and fall-lines can only be inferred by the tilt of blood in the skull. It felt, for that astonishing hour up on Ben a' Bhuird, as if we were all flying in white space.

rumbledethumps

For such a short book, it took me a long time to finish. Probably because it deserves to be thought over in some parts, and contemplated in the same way Shepherd contemplated the mountain. 

It's also a bit trite at times, places where she interrupts herself and corrects herself, that just feel a little too staged. But it made me want to visit the mountains of Scotland.

Fraser Simons

Absolutely gorgeous prose. I don’t think I’ve read anything like this I could compare it to Nor have I even heard of “mountain literature”. I doubt I’ve ever witnessed any locations like this whatsoever, let alone have the diction to convey it, if I did. Will look at more of her work.

The whole time I somewhat imagined if there was any sort of Lord of the Rings-type fantasy that intersected with something like this. That would really be something. I haven’t read any fantasy that conveyed an ecosystem and land in this kind of way.

AS SEEN ON BBC’S WINTERWATCH WITH CHRIS PACKHAM AND MICHAELA STRACHAN 'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Melody Izard

Nan Shepherd loves to be high. If I didn't want to go to Scotland before I'm very keen now to go specifically to Cairngorms National Park. Nothing is overlooked. Everything bears some sort of spiritual punch. A meditation.

Jason Porterfield

Short and lyrical, this little book perfectly frames a beloved place in all seasons and circumstances.

Superb writing. Nan Shepherd’s evocative descriptions of Cairngorms capture the atmosphere of the mountains, her relationship with them, their life, the attraction that they hold and their dangers. A book that transports the reader to the mountains, and emphasises the pleasure of climbing for climbing’s sake, rather than having the goal of the summit or a destination in mind.

Claire Matthews 

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

The Living Mountain A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland

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