The Living Mountain (Canons): A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland: 6

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We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. The bloodthirsty biographies of the world’s most infamous pirates are reproduced in this Folio edition of Captain Charles Johnson’s renowned work, including original woodcut illustrations and a fascinating introduction by Margarette Lincoln. It is something snatched from non-being, that shadow which creeps in on us continuously and can be held off by continuous creative act. Shepherd also wrote one non-fiction book on hill walking, based on her experiences walking in the Cairngorms. After some silence from her for a while, the narrator receives a message about a book she read on the theme being so very different from what she’d expected the ‘anthropocene’ to be, one which triggered off a tale, part dream, part memory of a story her grandmother had once told her, and it is this she shares with the narrator.

I think the environmentalists and nature lovers amongst us also gain an even deeper enjoyment from this novel – anyone who pleasures in simply going for a hike knows what deep therapy the natural world offers.Beautifully presented by Canongate, although the afterword by Jeanette Winterson completely misses the mark and descends into the banal wishy-washy thoughts that Shepherd has expertly managed to avoid in this short piece. The music piece draws inspiration from photographs that Awoiska made for Larcher in the mountains of his native Tirol (Austria).

In spite of talking about little else than nature, it is far more an interior rumination on the author’s part. the world of light, of colour, of shape, of shadow: of mathematical precision in the snowflake, the ice formation, the quartz crystal, the patterns of stamen and petal: of rhythm in the fluid curve and plunging line of the mountain faces. De sublieme natuurschrijver Robert MacFarlane (voorwoord) en literair icoon Jeanette Winterson (nawoord) omringen deze editie toepasselijk als reuzen. Ghosh is famously well read, and might have – at least in passing – become familiar with the lyrics of a 2005 song by the alternative rock band Gorillaz, “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head”. Awoiska van der Molen: ‘Regardless of how personal the starting point of my work may be, in the end I hope my images touch the strings of a universal knowledge, something lodged in our bodies, our guts, an intuition that reminds us of where we came from ages ago.Shepherd lived her entire life near the Scottish Cairngorms, a place generally accepted as the wildest spot in the British Isles.

From which detail you may deduce that this was written, or experienced, at a time when hob-nailed climbing boots were the norm.Mary Shelley's darkly disturbing tale is illustrated by Angela Barrett and newly introduced by Richard Holmes.

I think the plateau is never quite so desolate as in some days of early spring, when the snow is rather dirty, perished in places like a worn dress; and where it has disappeared, bleached grass, bleached and rotted berries and grey fringe-moss and lichen appear, the moss lifeless, as though its elasticity had gone. The story opens with the narrator and his online bookclub friend Maansi, two people who only interact on books and know little else of each other, discussing possible themes for the next year’s reading. The story is of a people who lived under the benevolent protection of a mountain, the Mahaparbat, which gave them all they needed to live happy, contented lives, and which was treated as sacred and never interfered with. It is a work deeply rooted in Nan Shepherd’s knowledge of the natural world, and a poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing for high and holy places. And there it might have been forgotten, but Robert Macfarlane was introduced to it by "a former friend" (as he rather darkly puts it).Written towards the end of World War Two, the manuscript for The Living Mountain was tucked away for almost 30 years before it was published to critical acclaim in 1977. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields – these are as much as a man can fully experience…’ this is really her doctrine, the beauty of the minutiae as much as what is visible through a wide angle lens. Considering it was barely 100 pages long, this book took a long time to read, even taking into account the 2 week break when I left it behind when going on holiday. In her final chapter, Shepherd notes that she understands why Buddhist pilgrims travel to mountains; her journey mirrors theirs: "It is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the mountain’s life, I penetrate also into my own.