Considérée comme la pionnière du nature writing, Nan Shepherd livre le récit de ses voyages au coeur des montagnes écossaises de Cairngorm. Là-bas, les hivers sont rudes, les conditions de vie précaires. Et pourtant, c'est un monde à couper le souffle que décrit Nan Shepherd de sa prose poétique et exaltée : les rivières, la neige, la faune et la flore... Elle explore les résonnances du coeur humain et du paysage, s'affronte à la grandeur souvent terrifiante de la montagne, et nous convie à contempler l'âme du monde déployée sous nos yeux.
Écrit en 1940, ce chef-d'oeuvre méditatif et envoûtant sur les beautés de la nature est devenu un classique incontournable du genre.
Comment les montagnes ont fasciné l'humanité.
À l'âge de douze ans, Robert Macfarlane découvre La Dernière Expédition au mont Everest, récit de l'équipée pendant laquelle George Mallory et Andrew Irvine ont disparu, en 1924. Ainsi est née sa passion pour les sommets. Il dévore la littérature d'aventure consacrée aux grandes expéditions et commence à pratiquer l'alpinisme, au plus haut niveau.
Pourquoi sommes-nous attirés par les sommets ? Pourquoi les êtres humains risquent-ils leur vie pour les atteindre ? Robert Macfarlane raconte l'histoire d'une fascination : " Il y a trois siècles, explique-t-il, risquer sa vie pour escalader une montagne aurait passé pour une preuve de folie. "
Aujourd'hui gagnés par le tourisme de masse et au carrefour d'enjeux géopolitiques majeurs, les sommets sont menacés. Ode aux liens immémoriaux qui unissent l'être humain à la nature, ce livre nous rappelle que la montagne doit demeurer avant tout une source d'émerveillement spirituel.
Une histoire des routes et de ceux qui les ont empruntées.
" Il existe entre l'écriture et la marche une alliance presque aussi ancienne que la littérature : pas de randonnée sans histoire, pas de chemin qui ne raconte quelque chose. " Robert Macfarlane a passé des années à parcourir les routes et à interroger les liens entre les hommes et le paysage. Tout commence un jour de printemps, quand il quitte sa maison de Cambridge pour suivre un ancien chemin de craie. Une aventure de trois ans le mène sur des voies antiques, des routes maritimes, des chemins de pèlerinage, des routes fracturées par la guerre et des sentiers escarpés de haute montagne.
Il suit la trace de marcheurs avant lui : poètes, soldats, chasseurs d'oiseaux, philosophes ou bergers. Il parcourt des routes périlleuses, sacrées ou intimistes. Chemin faisant, ce conteur merveilleux observe les paysages et explore leur histoire insoupçonnée pour la faire ressurgir sous ses pas.
D'une érudition scientifique et littéraire éblouissante, Par les chemins est une ode jubilatoire à la puissance de la marche, des routes, et de ceux qui les ont empruntées. Ce récit qui a déjà séduit plusieurs centaines de milliers de lecteurs est célébré depuis sa parution comme un chef-d'oeuvre de la littérature de voyage.
Ceci est un livre de sortilèges qu'il convient de lire à voix haute.
Il raconte ses histoires et chante ses chansons par les images et les mots. Vous y trouverez des incantations et des formules magiques, des sorts qui protègent et des sorts qui protestent, des bénédictions, des berceuses et des prières.
Traduit et adapté de l'anglais par Patrick Hersant
On accède au monde souterrain par le tronc fendu d'un vieux frêne...
« Underland », c'est le monde d'en bas, les lieux où hommes et femmes enfouissent leurs secrets honteux ou merveilleux.
Pendant plus de sept ans, l'écrivain Robert Macfarlane a visité des sites souterrains : un laboratoire caché dans une mine de sel sous la mer, des grottes norvégiennes abritant des peintures rupestres mystérieuses, les profondeurs de glaciers d'où surgissent des icebergs monstrueux.
Tout ce que nous entreposons, cachons, jetons, laissera une empreinte dans la terre. Quel sera notre legs géologique aux générations futures ?
En explorant notre rapport au sous-sol, Robert Macfarlane nous transmet un savoir riche, poétique et précieux.
Mêlant littérature, science et récit de voyage, Underland est une odyssée puissante qui résonne longtemps après qu'on en a achevé la lecture.
Il y a très longtemps, certains mots commencèrent à disparaître du langage des enfants. Si discrètement qu'au début personne ne s'en aperçut.
Et puis un jour, ils n'étaient plus là, le dictionnaire n'en avait gardé aucune trace.
Pour retrouver ce qui manque, il existe des formules magiques : les mots perdus peuvent revenir.
From Robert Macfarlane, the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Underland --a celebration of the language of landscape and the power of words to shape our sense of place For years now, the British writer Robert Macfarlane has been collecting place-words: terms for aspects of landscape, nature, and weather, drawn from dozens of languages and dialects of the British Isles. In this, his fifth book, Macfarlane brilliantly explores the linguistic and literary terrain of the British archipelago, from the Shetlands to Cornwall and from Cumbria to Suffolk, offering themed glossaries of hundreds of these rare, deeply local, poetical terms, organized by such geographical terrains as flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, woodlands, and underlands. Interspersed with this archive of place words are biographical essays in which Macfarlane writes of his favorite authors who have paid close attention to the natural world and who embody in their own work the huge richness of place language--from Barry Lopez and John Muir to Nan Shepard, J. A. Baker, and Roger Deakin. Landmarks is a book about the power of language and how it can become a way to know and love landscape, from a writer acclaimed for his own precision of utterance and distinctive, lyrical voice.
Following the tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a ancient network of routes criss-crossing the British Isles and beyond, the author discovers a lost world - a landscape of the feet and the mind, of pilgrimage and ritual, of stories and ghosts.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope' Jeanette Winterson, Guardian 'The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year' Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Observer 'My top book of the year' Susan Hill, Spectator From bestselling Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist & author Jackie Morris All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world - Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children's minds. 'Gorgeous' Observer The Lost Words stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke. With acrostic spell-poems by award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane and hand-painted illustration by Jackie Morris, this enchanting book captures the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages. 'Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty' Alex Preston, Observer
Robert Macfarlane (Author) Robert Macfarlane is the author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and The Lost Words , co-created with Jackie Morris . Mountains of the Mind won the Guardian First Book Award and the Somerset Maugham Award and The Wild Places won the Boardman-Tasker Award. Both books have been adapted for television by the BBC. The Lost Words won the Books Are My Bag Beautiful Book Award and the Hay Festival Book of the Year. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and writes on environmentalism, literature and travel for publications including the Guardian , the Sunday Times and The New York Times . Stanley Donwood (Illustrator) Stanley Donwood is a graphic designer, artist and writer. He has worked with the British band Radiohead since 1994, producing the artwork for all their albums and promotional materials. He is also the author of numerous books including Catacombs of Terror!, Slowly Downward and Small Thoughts. His next book, Bad Island , will be published in 2019.
Lets readers follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove - roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond.
Berceau de tous les fantasmes, des défis les plus fous, royaume du surnaturel et du diabolique au Moyen Âge, source de sagesse ou de passion aujourd'hui, la montagne n'a cessé de fasciner les hommes, qu'ils la craignent ou la conquièrent. La montagne a d'abord paru effrayante, et ce n'est qu'au début du XVIIe siècle que l'homme s'approprie ce paysage en l'étudiant, en l'observant. Peu à peu la peur se transforme en curiosité, les hommes cherchent à atteindre les sommets, poussés par de multiples raisons - et, d'abord, la sensation de se mettre en danger, la montée d'adrénaline, l'effort, le dépassement de soi ...
Explores our ideas of the wild. This book also tells the story of a friendship, and of a loss. It mixes history, memory and landscape in a strange and beautiful evocation of wildness and its vital importance.
"Mountains of the Mind" pursues an investigation into our emotional and imaginative responses to mountains, and how these have changed over the last few centuries. It is rich with literary and historical references, and punctuated by descriptions of the author's own climbing experiences.
This book is about a voyage of discovery to exceptional places. Photographer Eric Brasseur considers the question of where might there still be real wilderness in Europe? He journeyed for days at a time through remote and inaccessible areas, without any guarantee of success, to find out.
Often enduring extreme conditions - the Finnish taiga at a temperature of minus 35 celsius and the mosquitoes of Berezina in Belorussia - Brasseur explored many different natural environments from glaciers, volcanoes, canyons and archipelagoes through to primeval forests. He watched orcas in northern Norway and encountered bears and wolves in the Italian Abruzzi. He visited unique ecosystems, some of them unspoilt, others clearly under pressure.
From the Azores to the Balkans, from the highlands of Scotland to the steppes of Russia, Brasseur observed nature - birds of prey, vegetation of all kinds, sea creatures, rare plants and much more - at its very wildest. And here, with a supporting text by Erik Verdonck and interviews with local conservationists and scientists, he shares his experiences and reveals the remarkable sights he recorded through the lens of his camera.
From the bestselling, prize-winning authors of beloved cult phenomena The Lost Words and The Lost Spellsbr>br>''Breathtaking and magical. Jackie Morris has created something that you could spend all day looking at'' New Statesmanbr>br>''Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty'' Observerbr>br>Discover and share the wonders of the wild world as seen in The Lost Words and The Lost Spells...br>br>This collection of 100 postcards features artwork and words from two beloved modern classics, in which Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane celebrate the creatures, trees and plants of nearby nature, from Acorn to Wren, by way of Curlew and Kingfisher, Silver Birch and Snow Hare, Goldfinch and Gorse.br>br>The front of each card bears one of Morris''s Greenaway Medal-winning paintings; on the reverse, you will find an accompanying quotation from one of the spell-poems in the Lost books, as well as an identification of the species shown on the card. The remaining space is left blank for you to fill in these wild cards with pen, pencil or paint - and then send them out into the world to make and renew connections.>
The basis for the new documentary film, Mountain: A Breathtaking Voyage into the Extreme. Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert McFarlane reveals how the mystery of the worlds highest places has came to grip the Western imagination--and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes. His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime experiences to be had on high; and by 1924 the death on Mt Everest of an Englishman named George Mallory came to symbolize the heroic ideals of his day. Macfarlane also reflects on fear, risk, and the shattering beauty of ice and snow, the competition and contemplation of the climb, and the strange alternate reality of high altitude, magically enveloping us in the allure of mountains at every level.
Dazzlingly beautiful and wonderfully inventive, discover the magical new book from the creators of bestselling, critically acclaimed literary phenomenon, The Lost Words ... Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells is a pocket-sized treasure that introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. As in The Lost Words , these 'spells' take their subjects from relatively commonplace, and yet underappreciated, animals, birds, trees and flowers -- from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw. But they break out of the triptych format of The Lost Words , finding new shapes, new spaces and new voices with which to conjure. Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart, The Lost Spells summons back what is often lost from sight and care, and inspires protection and action on behalf of the natural world. Above all, it celebrates a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature's power to amaze, console and bring joy. Praise for The Lost Words : 'Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language' Jeanette Winterson, Guardian 'Breathtaking, magical... Jackie Morris has created something that you could spend all day looking at' New Statesman 'Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty' Observer
