Book Review

Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain was discussed as part of on an online reading group by Robert Macfarlane, on Kim Hill's Saturday morning show, Radio NZ Saturday 21 March 2020.

Of course there were immediately holds put on our library's print and talking book copies. Due to the lockdown, we added the ebook to our collection to ensure its availability to our library members.

Written in the 1940s but not published until the late 1970s, this small but dense book has become known as a classic of British nature and landscape writing. It is an incredibly lyrical memoir and musings of Shepherd's experiences of the Scottish Cairngorm mountain range.

You do not have to know these mountains, nor be a hillwalker, (tramper in NZ speak), to appreciate this book. In the audio version, Tilda Swinton's reading of it is massages your senses as well as your imagination. It is an excellent way to escape the realities of Covid-19 for a while, and travel across the world, to the land of ptarmigan and heather, corrie and lochan.

Well worth an e-read!