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Islands of Abandonment
- Life in the Post-Human Landscape
- Narrated by: Cal Flyn
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's Summary
The Sunday Times' Science and Environment Book of the Year 2021
Winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021
Shortlisted for the Wainwright Conservation Award 2021
Shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize 2021
Shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2021
This is a book about abandoned places: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands—and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place.
In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods.
This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live—or survive in tiny, precarious numbers—to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world—and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery.
By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?
Critic Reviews
"The most precious hymn to resilience...written with a beautiful attention to detail.... Wonderful." (Adam Nicolson, winner of the 2018 Wainwright Prize)
"A redemptive, celebratory pageant of a book, rich in reflection and revelation...beautifully written.... I've no doubt torrents of accolades await." (Gavin Francis, author of Island Dreams)
"Meticulous research, lyrical writing.... Ultimately it shows how nature can heal a landscape broken by human.... At a time when writing about nature can be depressing, a book that goes to the most depressing places on Earth and finds hope is a revelation." (Louise Gray, author of The Ethical Carnivore)
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- Valerie
- 27-04-2022
Poor narration ruins it
The author narrates her own book and unfortunately does a poor job. She reads in a monotone and without any apparent enthusiasm for her subject. The topic does seem interesting but the flat, colourless narration kills it dead. I will return this and will perhaps read a library copy instead. Full disclosure - I’ve only made it through Chapter 1 before deciding to pull the plug.
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