The Living Mountain A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland
- 1 Aug 2019
- 9781786897350
- £16.99
- 176 pp
- 144×220mm
- 18 Aug 2011
- 9780857861832
- £10.99
- 160 pp
- 129×198mm
- 15 Aug 2019
- 9781786899569
- £19.99
- 4 hrs 53 min
- 140×128mm
- 28 May 2019
- 9781786899361
- £25
- 4 hrs 53 min
- 18 Aug 2011
- 9780857863607
- £8.79
- 160 pp
In a few words
A beautiful, collectable gift edition of the masterpiece of Scottish nature writing. Introduced by Robert Macfarlane and with an afterword by Jeanette Winterson
In a few words
A masterpiece of Scottish nature writing by Nan Shepherd, now introduced by Robert Macfarlane and with an afterword by Jeanette Winterson
In a few words
Nan Shepherd’s masterpiece of Scottish nature writing, read by the award-winning Tilda Swinton. Featuring an afterword by Robert Macfarlane and an essay from Jeanette Winterson
In a few words
Nan Shepherd’s masterpiece of Scottish nature writing, read by the award-winning Tilda Swinton. Featuring an afterword by Robert Macfarlane and an essay from Jeanette Winterson
In a few words
A masterpiece of Scottish nature writing by Nan Shepherd, now introduced by Robert Macfarlane and with an afterword by Jeanette Winterson
The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain
Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different
Robert Macfarlane
The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain
A slender masterpiece – a meditation on Shepherd’s lifelong relationship with the Cairngorm mountains . . . It is both intensely engaged with its specific setting, and gyring outwards to vaster questions of knowledge, existence and – a word Shepherd uses sparingly but tellingly – love
Robert Macfarlane
The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain
Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different
Robert Macfarlane
The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain
Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different
Robert Macfarlane
The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain
Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different
Robert Macfarlane
More about
the book
‘The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain’ Guardian
Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. Afterword by Jeanette Winterson
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.
More about
the book
‘The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain’ Guardian
Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. Afterword by Jeanette Winterson
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.
More about
the book
THE TIMES AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR
‘The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain’ Guardian
In this masterpiece of nature writing, beautifully narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tilda Swinton, 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.
More about
the book
THE TIMES AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR
‘The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain’ Guardian
In this masterpiece of nature writing, beautifully narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tilda Swinton, 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.
More about
the book
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.
A cherished literary classic . . . in a world of self-help, this is true inspiration, deeply admirable without the distance of heroism, bracing without stridency and, ultimately, generous
Reading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading
Jeanette Winterson
If you read it, you too will feel changed. This is sublime, in the 18th-century sense, when landscapes like these were terrifying. And she achieves it in language that is almost incantatory, like a spell
A masterpiece . . . Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain
A cherished literary classic . . . in a world of self-help, this is true inspiration, deeply admirable without the distance of heroism, bracing without stridency and, ultimately, generous
Reading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading
Jeanette Winterson
Nan Shepherd's prose is as bracing as water from a mountain stream . . . If you read it, you too will feel changed. This is sublime, in the 18th-century sense, when landscapes like these were terrifying. And she achieves it in language that is almost incantatory, like a spell
A masterpiece . . . Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain
[A] masterpiece of Scottish writing
Anita Sethi
ObserverA masterpiece . . . Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain
Chitra Ramaswamy
ScotsmanReading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading
Jeanette Winterson
Tilda Swinton...narrates with a warm, slightly husky intensity that matches Shepherd's prose. The experience of reading it in a single sitting was, she said, "like riding the best possible hunter over the brightest possible hill: exhilarating barely covers it".
Christina Hardyment
The Times[A] masterpiece of Scottish writing
Anita Sethi
ObserverA masterpiece . . . Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain
Chitra Ramaswamy
ScotsmanReading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading
Jeanette Winterson
Tilda Swinton...narrates with a warm, slightly husky intensity that matches Shepherd's prose. The experience of reading it in a single sitting was, she said, "like riding the best possible hunter over the brightest possible hill: exhilarating barely covers it".
Christina Hardyment
The Times
Nan Shepherd
View profileAnna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield – to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside. To honour her legacy, in 2016, Nan Shepherd was added to the Royal Bank of Scotland £5 note.
Nan Shepherd
View profileAnna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield – to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside.
Nan Shepherd
View profileAnna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield – to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside. To honour her legacy, in 2016, Nan Shepherd was added to the Royal Bank of Scotland five-pound note.
Tilda Swinton is an award-winning actor, known for her roles in films including I Am Love, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Michael Clayton and A Bigger Splash. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2007, is a recipient of the Richard Harris Award for her contribution to the British film industry and has been nominated for three Golden Globes. Swinton lives in the Scottish Highlands, close to Nan Shepherd’s beloved Cairngorm Mountains.
Nan Shepherd
View profileAnna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield – to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside. To honour her legacy, in 2016, Nan Shepherd was added to the Royal Bank of Scotland five-pound note.
Tilda Swinton is an award-winning actor, known for her roles in films including I Am Love, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Michael Clayton and A Bigger Splash. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2007, is a recipient of the Richard Harris Award for her contribution to the British film industry and has been nominated for three Golden Globes. Swinton lives in the Scottish Highlands, close to Nan Shepherd’s beloved Cairngorm Mountains.
Nan Shepherd
View profileAnna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield – to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside.
Robert Macfarlane’s Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination (2003), won the Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Robert Macfarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He lives in Cambridge with his family.
