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The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (The Grampian Quartet Book 4) Kindle Edition

by Nan Shepherd (Author), Robert Macfarlane (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,817 ratings
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AS SEEN ON BBC’S WINTERWATCH WITH CHRIS PACKHAM AND MICHAELA STRACHAN

'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.

Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.
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  1. Book 4 of 4
    The Grampian Quartet
  2. Print length
    151 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Canongate Books
  6. Publication date
    November 15, 2008
  7. File size
    3460 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

I absolutely loved The Living Mountain — 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 ― New York Times

“The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain” Guardian

“Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different” ROBERT MACFARLANE

“[A] masterpiece of Scottish writing” ANITA SETHI, Observer

“A masterpiece . . . Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain” Scotsman

“Reading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading” JEANETTE WINTERSON



An impressionistic and weather infused memoir of her experiences of walking and living in the wild landscape of the Cairngorms . . . A key influence on modern nature writers such as Robert Macfarlane ― Herald

The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain ― Guardian

If you read it, you too will feel changed. This is sublime, in the 18th-century sense, when landscapes like these were terrifying. And she achieves it in language that is almost incantatory, like a spell ― Guardian

Reading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading -- Jeanette Winterson

Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different

A masterpiece . . . Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain ― The Scotsman

About the Author

Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also traveled further afield – to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside, Scotland. To honour her legacy, in 2016, Nan Shepherd was added to the Royal Bank of Scotland five-pound note.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005GK7LQK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Canongate Books; Main edition (November 15, 2008)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 15, 2008
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3460 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 151 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,817 ratings

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  1. Jeanette Winterson

    Jeanette Winterson

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    Jeanette Winterson, OBE (born 27 August 1959) is an award-winning English writer, who became famous with her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against conventional values. Some of her other novels have explored gender polarities and sexual identity. Winterson is also a broadcaster and a professor of creative writing.

    Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Mariusz Kubik, http://www.mariuszkubik.pl [Attribution, GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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  2. Nan Shepherd

    Nan Shepherd

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
1,817 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

HMS Warspite
5.0 out of 5 stars The Cairngorms, appreciated...
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2020
Verified Purchase
This reviewer has spent years exploring the Cairngorm mountains in the Highlands of Scotland. What a pleasure to find an author with the skill to describe the experience of knowing these mountains in all their glory. The author was a native of northeast Scotland, and spent an active lifetime exploring the Cairngorms, especially the high and ancient plateau at the roof of Scotland. That plateau, and this book, are a feast for the mind and the senses.

This is a short book, but it pays the reader to take his or her time reading it. Appreciate the author's love for her mountains in all seasons, and for the people who live there. Take the time to read the introduction and afterword, to better know the author herself. Very well recommended.
4 people found this helpful
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VerbRiver
5.0 out of 5 stars A Gifted Shepherd on the Mountain
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2020
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Classic. [kla-sik] Noun. — thick book clotted with agate font; thrilling as carrots racing to the finish line.

When “The Living Mountain” was described to me as a “classic” I applied the above definition and kept away from it. Then I discovered the book had only 108 pages. It was by that sad standard I chose to buy it. Wrong criterion. Splendid decision.

In this edition, the text is preceded by a twenty-five page Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. It is a separate gem, in no small part because of the multiple quotes from the forthcoming text.

And then you are in it, as fully immersed in Nan Shepherd’s prose as she is in the mountain itself. On page eleven she strikes home her central message. She writes of the summits around her: “I knew when I had looked for a long time that I had hardly begun to see.” From that point on you are her guest working to see better the mountain and its world. In her company you will feel, touch, and see things previously beyond reach including walking through a cloud, an experience few people likely even consider.

In a chapter on Light and Air, you will confront the power of shadows to cast “an etching” of grass “distinct and black, a miracle of exact detail.”

Shepherd is no mountain idolator. “Life has not much margin here,” she says. “Work goes on from dark to dark.” Yet in her deep and careful persistence, she proves an enveloping champion. “Whether you give it conscious thought or not,” she writes, “you are touching life, and something within you knows it.” Even from a distance of several decades and the interposition of the printed page, I also knew I was touching a living mountain. An exceptionally fine reading experience.
33 people found this helpful
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PDCLarry
5.0 out of 5 stars True love of the natural world
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2015
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Nan Shepherd was a college professor, novelist (3 published works) and poet. This book is the last work she published, towards the end of her life. It is a paean to her love of the countryside where she spent most of her life, The Cairn Gorm mountain range in Northern Scotland. Brilliant, lyrical, a great tribute to the human spirit and Man's relationship to his (and her) environment. This belongs on every bookshelf, next to Gilbert White's "The Natural History of Selborne." This edition contains an overly long Foreword that attempts to tell us that we are going to enjoy reading Nan Shepherd's words. Skip it and just read her words. Or read it AFTER reading her words.
31 people found this helpful
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Cassandra
4.0 out of 5 stars Contemplative, brillant and thought provoking
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2020
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Outstanding work, a “travelogue”, an outdoor’s book, a climbers book, a naturalist book,,,so many aspects of a deep appreciation of the Cairngorm mountains, but universal in reminding us how to experience Nature, and ultimately oursekves
2 people found this helpful
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Shelley M Green
5.0 out of 5 stars Living inside Nan Shepherd's Beloved Cairngorms
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2020
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An astonishing lyrical masterpiece by a poet, mountaineer and naturalist, Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain opened physical and spiritual vistas I have never before encountered. Her lifetime of closely observed, thoroughly lived experience on the Cairngorm Plateau of Scotland offers a unique immersion into one wild and remote region of our world. I cannot recommend it highly enough. One suggestion: if reading the edition introduced by Robert McFarlane, go to the book first and then read his preface, which is in itself a magnificent evocation of nature and place.
7 people found this helpful
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Robert M. Hall
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2023
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A compelling introduction to the brilliance of Nan Shepard and the beauty of the Cairngorms. Loved everything about this!
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Top reviews from other countries

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Mary
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Book
Reviewed in Canada on December 31, 2022
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This was one of the books I gave my husband for Christmas. It arrived on time, was well packaged and so was in pristine condition. It is a very beautiful book and he is enjoying it. Many thanks,
Mary
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ana
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Spain on October 25, 2023
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Fue un regalo de cumpleaños para un escocés que vive fuera de su país. El libro le encantó. Dijo que era como estar en casa, pues las descripciones que hace la autora de los paisajes son una obra de arte que le transportaron a su tierra.
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Kenr
5.0 out of 5 stars Soulful and poetic
Reviewed in Australia on April 18, 2020
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Simply beautiful. A meditation on how to explore the soul. Y merging with Mother Nature. A book I treasure and will return to.
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Puzenat
4.0 out of 5 stars The living mountain
Reviewed in France on November 21, 2016
Verified Purchase
Pour la poésie des matières : couleurs, lumières, éléments.
La sensualité de la nature par une auteure qui n'a eu de cesse d'arpenter ses montagnes, le massif des Cairngorms en Ecosse.
2 people found this helpful
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Gundula Hammer
5.0 out of 5 stars Climbing a mountain with your mind
Reviewed in Germany on February 17, 2015
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If you only have a little bit of experience how it feels to climb a mountain you actually can go there with this book. It doesn't matter which mountain it is, Nan Shepherd takes us to the very essence of it. Grace and drama of nature itself. Something almost forgotten in recent busy days.
Thanks to the appendix it is also understandable for non scots.
One person found this helpful
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