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The Living Mountain

by Nan Shepherd

A close study of Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains

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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A close study of Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains

Nan Shepherd’s book draws on journeys through the Cairngorm Mountains to consider how close attention can reveal a landscape’s varied life. Walking, weather, cliffs, lakes, and eagles provide the ground for reflections on the natural world and human relationship with it. The book combines elements of memoir, field observation, and meditation, making the mountain landscape both its subject and a way of thinking about perception and self-knowledge. Written during World War II, the manuscript was published decades later.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Adults interested in nature writing and mountain landscapes
  • Readers curious about memoirs shaped by sustained attention to a particular place
  • Those exploring writing about human relationships with the natural world

Themes

Mountain ecosystemsClose observation of natureLandscape and self-knowledgeHuman connection with the environment

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"In a world of self-help, this is true inspiration, deeply admirable without the distance of heroism, bracing without stridency and, ultimately, generous. The mountain, Shepherd tells us, is 'a corrective of glib assessment.' So is its book." --The New York Times Book Review

An internationally bestselling classic on the power of the natural world--"part memoir, part field notebook, part lyrical meditation on nature and our relationship with it, evocative of Rachel Carson and Henry Beston and John Muir" (Maria Popova, The New York Times).

This masterpiece of nature writing by Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into "the high and holy places" of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world of spectacular cliffs, deep silences, and lakes so clear that they cannot be imagined. As she walks through clouds, endures blizzards, and watches the great spirals of eagles in flight, Shepherd comes to know something about the hidden life of this remarkable landscape--and also herself.

The Living Mountain is the result of one woman's lifetime spent in search of the essential nature of the wild world around her. Composed during World War II, Shepherd's manuscript lay untouched for almost four decades, nearly lost to time, before it was finally published. In the decades since, audiences and critics of all generations have embraced it as a classic, an enduring testament to the magnificence of mountains and our communion with the environment.
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