Underland

From the best selling, award winning author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, a haunting voyage into the planet s past and future.Hailed as the great nature writer of this generation Wall Street Journal , Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece an epic exploration of the Earth s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind Traveling through deep time the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present he moves from the birth of the universe to a post human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep sunk hiding place where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come Woven through Macfarlane s own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls the awful darkness within the world Global in its geography and written with great lyricism and power, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment Taking a deep time view of our planet, Macfarlane here asks a vital and unsettling question Are we being good ancestors to the future Earth Underland marks a new turn in Macfarlane s long term mapping of the relations of landscape and the human heart From its remarkable opening pages to its deeply moving conclusion, it is a journey into wonder, loss, fear, and hope At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world. Download Underland Author Robert Macfarlane – kino-fada.fr I m a seasoned armchair traveler, used to shadowing journeys that I know I ll never do myself One of my BFFs is always telling me never say never and perhaps she s right, except when it comes to this book, Underland Hand on heart, I will never follow in Robert Macfarlane s footsteps underground I m too claustrophobic.This book is many layered A bridging theme to his many different journeys is our generation s legacy to the future In the words of Jonas Salk, Are we being good ancestors I m a seasoned armchair traveler, used to shadowing journeys that I know I ll never do myself One of my BFFs is always telling me never say never and perhaps she s right, except when it comes to this book, Underland Hand on heart, I will never follow in Robert Macfarlane s footsteps underground I m too claustrophobic.This book is many layered A bridging theme to his many different journeys is our generation s legacy to the future In the words of Jonas Salk, Are we being good ancestors No, we re not, is the short answer and I think we all know that There s nowhere that it sapparent than on Green...I was wary of Underland at the beginning, as I normally reach for Macfarlane s books when I cannot go exploring myself Sort of a stand in adventure while bound to my desk for work or asthma keeping my indoors in winter How would it work reading about him exploring terrain that I have absolutely no interest in exploring myself Would I love it or would I be detached and disinterested Right from the beginning, I was greeted by the high level of writing It is a bit like meeting up with an old fr I was wary of Underland at the beginning, as I normally reach for Macfarlane s books when I cannot go exploring myself Sort of a stand in adventure while bound to my desk for work or asthma keeping my indoors in winter How would it work reading about him exploring terrain that I have absolutely no interest in exploring myself Would I love it or would I be detached and disinterested Right from the beginning, I was greeted by the high level of writing It is a bit like meeting up with an old friend, you sit do...In brief Without question the best most interesting Macfarlane book I have read 4.5 5 and happily rounded up In fullI am a fan of Robert Macfarlane s work and have read a number of his books over the past few years All the previous books I ve read have been largely about life in the open This one takes a very different direction and goes Underland In common with previous books it looks at its subject in differing places, times and ways The range of Underland topics that he manages to cov In brief Without question the best most interesting Macfarlane book I have read 4.5 5 and happily rounded up In fullI am a fan of Robert Macfarlane s work and have read a number of his books over the past few years All the previous books I ve read have been largely about life in the open This one takes a very different direction and goes Underland In common with previous books it looks at its subject in differing places, times and ways The range of Underland topics that he manages to cover is diverse, fascinating and thought provoking at times.I would argue that you need to savour a Robert Macfarlane book I actually took a couple of months to read this, dipping in when I felt the inclination In the case of this book in particular, and his others sometimes, they take you to strange places often known mainly to the author For example the chapter on the Wood Wide Web I found simply fasc...British nature writer Macfarlane has written an enthralling exploration of the Earth below us He has structured the book around three uses that humans have had to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful Along the way, the reader gets to experience claustrophobia that flows from Macfarlane s experiences like when he and a fellow spelunker enter a ruckle an underground subsidence of boulders prone to shifting and toppling in the Mendips, a quar British nature writer Macfarlane has written an enthralling exploration of the Earth below us He has structured the book around three uses that humans have had to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful Along the way, the reader gets to experience claustrophobia that flows from Macfarlane s experiences like when he and a fellow spelunker enter a ruckle an underground subsidence of boulders prone to shifting and toppling in the Mendips, a quarried limestone range in England pocketed with ancient burial chambers Or there is the time he nearly becomes stuck in a narrow vertical shaft while exploring the catacombs under the streets of Paris.This book is the culmination of 10 years of research exploration and is designed to raise important issues the relationship of man with his landscape, the instability of time and place, and most important, the impermanence of humans He witnesses an example of the conse...Wonderful book The writing is fantastic It s lovingly descriptive and deeply contemplative The author explores the spaces deep within the Earth for what they say about the Earth s long past and what it ...This was a bit of a hodgepodge for me that it s exceptionally written goes without saying, but I m not sure Macfarlane succeeds in bringing together all of his wildly different subterranean topics mining, caving, burial chambers, the study of dark matter, radioactive waste, tree communication networks, Parisian catacombs, the mythical rivers of the underworld, prehistoric cave paintings, resistance to oil drilling, Greenland s glaciers and Finland s tunnels, andI felt crushed by the wei This was a bit of a hodgepodge for me that it s exceptionally written goes without saying, but I m not sure Macfarlane succeeds in bringing together all of his wildly different subterranean topics mining, caving, burial chambers, the study of dark matter, radioactive waste, tree communication networks, Parisian catacombs, the mythical rivers of the underworld, prehistoric cave paintings, resistance to oil drilling, Greenland s glaciers and Finland s tunnels, andI felt crushed by the weight of the prose by page 30 and skimmed the rest.Some lines I loved Time moves differently here in the underland It thickens, pools, flows, rushes, slows Philip Larkin famously proposed that what will survive of us is love Wrong What will su...I m a seasoned armchair traveler, used to shadowing journeys that I know I ll never do myself One of my BFFs is always telling me never say never and perhaps she s right, except when it comes to this book, Underland Hand on heart, I will never follow in Robert Macfarlane s footsteps underground I m too claustrophobic.This book is many layered A bridging theme to his many different journeys is our generation s legacy to the future In the words of Jonas Salk, Are we being good ancestors I m a seasoned armchair traveler, used to shadowing journeys that I know I ll never do myself One of my BFFs is always telling me never say never and perhaps she s right, except when it comes to this book, Underland Hand on heart, I will never follow in Robert Macfarlane s footsteps underground I m too claustrophobic.This book is many layered A bridging theme to his many different journeys is our generation s legacy to the future In the words of Jonas Salk, Are we being good ancestors No, we re not, is the short answer and I think we all know that There s nowhere that it sapparent than on Greenland s glaciers The speed at which they re melting should terrify us all MacFarlane doesn t just travel over the glaciers, he abseils into a moulin which is a hole made my meltwater th...Mankind has long looked to the heavens seeking fortune, inspiration and direction Numerous cultures have all considered the underworld to be a place where a river carried the dead away from the surface, where death abounded, hell, hades and other places were thought to exist It was somewhere to be avoided Yet, people have worked underground for thousands of years, tracing and extracting the minerals and ores in the ground, However, it is not something that most people do on a regular basis in Mankind has long looked to the heavens seeking fortune, inspiration and direction Numerous cultures have all considered the underworld to be a place where a river carried the dead away from the surface, where death abounded, hell, hades and other places were thought to exist It was somewhere to be avoided Yet, people have worked underground for thousands of years, tracing and extracting the minerals and ores in the ground, However, it is not something that most people do on a regular basis in the UK now our mining industry is gone We do head beneath the surface though as millions of people think nothing about going on the tube under London and other capital cities to get to work However, very few get to go to where Macfarlane is heading.His journeys into the nether regions of our planet will take him to the catacombs of Paris where his guide knows the numerous passages so well that she doesn t need a ...one of the most compelling, vivid, thought provoking, magnificent, and richly composed non fiction books i ve read in some time, robert macfarlane s underland a deep time journey traverses the european continent, exploring subterranean locales both natural and man made and, er, man caused with his poetic command of language, keen observational gifts, and worldly perspective, macfarlane s writing is frequently breathtaking.seamlessly blending scientific inquiry, nature writing, travelogue, ad one of the most compelling, vivid, thought provoking, magnificent, and richly composed non fiction books i ve read in some time, robert macfarlane s underland a deep time journey traverses the european continent, exploring subterranean locales both natural and man made and, er, man caused with his poetic command of language, keen observational gifts, and worldly perspective, macfarlane s writing is frequently breathtaking.seamlessly blending scientific inquiry, nature writing, travelogue, adventure tale, reportage, history, and requiem for our anthropocenic age, underland delves deeply both literally and figuratively macfarlane s new book is a remarkable exploration of natural wonder at some of the earth s most inaccessible and outlying underlying places macfarlane s ...MacFarlane lets us tag along as he explores the vast world beneath our feet the catacombs of France, ancient cemeteries, mines where dark matter is studied, Bronze age Norwegian cave art, etc. complete with the many engaging ...

• English
• 20 January 2017
Robert Macfarlane
• Hardcover
• 496 pages
• 0393242145
• Robert Macfarlane
• Underland