2008-07-23 A book to savour - poetic, reflective and precise

This book really imaginatively engaged me and brought to life the wildness of many of the landscapes of the United Kingdom. Macfarlane's precise writing evokes these places so well - the weather, plants, minerals, animal life and people. He also has the uncanny knack of bringing in his reading in English literature, nature writing , history and science in ways that seem entirely right and never forced. Casting a moving shadow over the book is the death of a friend, which also helps make this so much more than a travelogue.