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Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape
by Cal Flyn
A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence.
Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere else on earth in the Korean peninsula's narrow DMZ.
Cal Flyn, an investigative journalist, exceptional nature writer, and promising new literary voice visits the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth that due to war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, have been abandoned by humans. What she finds every time is an "island" of teeming new life: nature has rushed in to fill the void faster and more thoroughly than even the most hopeful projections of scientists.
Islands of Abandonment is a tour through these new ecosystems, in all their glory, as sites of unexpected environmental significance, where the natural world has reasserted its wild power and promise. And while it doesn't let us off the hook for addressing environmental degradation and climate change, it is a case that hope is far from lost, and it is ultimately a story of redemption: the most polluted spots on Earth can be rehabilitated through ecological processes and, in fact, they already are.
"Journalist Flyn travels to abandoned wilderness sites around the globe to study how ecosystems regrow in this riveting collection of essays...Through lush and poetic language, she captures the vital forces at work in the natural world. This is nature writing at its most potent." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Brave, unflinching, and keenly observant…Flyn writes with the soul of a poet and the eye of a painter." - Booklist (starred review)
"Investigative journalist Flyn takes readers to a fascinating variety of remote locales that humans have abandoned for various reasons, including natural disaster, war, economic collapse, and disease...A compelling reflection on the extraordinary healing power of nature when it is left to its own devices." - Kirkus Reviews
"[Flyn] has an eye for the fresh facet and telling detail, delivered with a crisp lyricism…Islands of Abandonment is ultimately far more than a factual survey of liminal geographies, although it's a well-researched one. And it is more than an eloquent foray into landscapes of the mind. By mapping the ecological recovery now sweeping the globe, it celebrates the power of benign neglect in enabling nature to do the journeywork of regeneration." - Medium
"[F]ascinating and brain-energising...full of detail and colour." - The Times of London (UK)
"Scintillating…Flyn's research is meticulous, but what makes the book so extraordinary is the originality of her thought…she scatters observations like seeds, and you find them taking root in your brain." - The Herald Magazine (UK)
"[A]n exhilarating look at some of the world's most dangerous places – and a meditation on nature's power to endure." - The Telegraph (UK)
"Bracing, eye-opening, comprehensive, and essential, Islands of Abandonment is an energizing and important work. It affirms that nature is resilient, given half a chance, and should motivate all of us to try harder, even for the habitats that seem broken or hopeless." - Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author of Annihilation
This information about Islands of Abandonment was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cal Flyn is an author, an investigative journalist, and a MacDowell fellow from the Highlands of Scotland. She has worked as a reporter for the Sunday Times and the Telegraph and has contributed to publications including Granta, the Guardian, the Times of London, the Observer, and others. Her first book, Thicker Than Water, was one of the Times's best books of 2016.
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
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