On the Wild Places

The Wild Places is a lyrical rumination on, well, the wild. Macfarlane travels through a number of places across the UK and reflects on the way the wild has “disappeared” — or, in fact, hasn’t. I don’t know many of the places he names, but I loved the anecdotes: a monadism based on lozenges and waves, reflections on the moors and the deserts of Libya, the Wild Hunt, monasteries in the far north. It’s such a beautiful piece of writing, and I learned a lot.