The Living Mountain - by Nan Shepherd (Paperback)

About the Book

"Now with a new introduction by Jenny Odell, this masterpiece of nature writing by Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into "the high and holy places" of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world of spectacular cliffs, deep silences, and lakes so clear that they cannot be imagined. As she walks through clouds, endures blizzards, and watches the great spirals of eagles in flight, Shepherd comes to know something about the hidden life of this remarkable landscape--and also herself"--

Book Synopsis

"In a world of self-help, this is true inspiration, deeply admirable without the distance of heroism, bracing without stridency and, ultimately, generous. The mountain, Shepherd tells us, is 'a corrective of glib assessment.' So is its book." --The New York Times Book Review

An internationally bestselling classic on the power of the natural world--"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" (Maria Popova, The New York Times).

This masterpiece of nature writing by Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into "the high and holy places" of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world of spectacular cliffs, deep silences, and lakes so clear that they cannot be imagined. As she walks through clouds, endures blizzards, and watches the great spirals of eagles in flight, Shepherd comes to know something about the hidden life of this remarkable landscape--and also herself.

The Living Mountain is the result of one woman's lifetime spent in search of the essential nature of the wild world around her. Composed during World War II, Shepherd's manuscript lay untouched for almost four decades, nearly lost to time, before it was finally published. In the decades since, audiences and critics of all generations have embraced it as a classic, an enduring testament to the magnificence of mountains and our communion with the environment.

Review Quotes

"This is true inspiration, deeply admirable without the distance of heroism, bracing without stridency and, ultimately, generous. The mountain, Shepherd tells us, is 'a corrective of glib assessment.' So is [this] book." --The New York Times

"A classic of nature writing for good reason." --The Washington Post

"A masterpiece of Scottish writing. " --The Observer

"The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain." --The Guardian

"Abounding in clean, sharp, profound descriptions of phenomena both interior and exterior, Shepherd's narrative is a marvel of economy . . . Her prose is fresh and apt." --Wall Street Journal

"An arcane book of wonders, tuned by a poet's ear--and, like Mary Poppins' handbag, inexhaustible...The Living Mountain is not so much a book as an incantation...This is why Nan Shepherd belongs on that £5 note. She reminds us of what sustains us from the inside, when the road of self runs out and all else falls away but connection itself." --John Long, Summit Journal

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

"If you read it, you too will feel changed. This is sublime . . . And she achieves it in language that is almost incantatory, like a spell." --Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

"In this expanded American edition, long shelved by its author, Shepherd's perspective, which prioritizes sensory observations over geological particulars, loses none of its resonance. There's no denying that Shepherd's prose reaches considerable heights. An ode to a mountain range's mysteries proves timeless." --Kirkus Reviews

"With a framing introduction by Robert Macfarlane...and an afterword by Jenny Odell...this edition gives The Living Mountain the platform it deserves. This is not just a book about place--it is a book that is place. It remains as vital as the mountains themselves, urging us to look more closely. To listen more deeply. To move through the world with the same quiet reverence that Shepherd once did."--The Conversation

"[A] forgotten masterpiece about our relationship with nature . . . Shepherd does for the mountain what Rachel Carson did for the ocean--both women explore entire worlds previously mapped only by men and mostly through the lens of conquest rather than contemplation; both bring to their subject a naturalist's rigor and a poet's reverence, gleaming from the splendor of facts a larger meditation on meaning." --Maria Popova, The Marginalian

"Reading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else." --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." --Herald (Scotland)

"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, author of Underland

"The Living Mountain is perhaps our purest distillate of what good nature writing should be: the product of a brilliant, serene mind living in a place for a very long time, perceiving its wild beauty with a merciless clarity, and then capturing it all in language infused with a deep sense of love--and a fierce hatred of cliché. In the process, remembrance is somehow alchemized into rapture, gneiss into gnosis. An almost cosmic wisdom sprouts up from the land itself." --Robert Moor, bestselling author of On Trails

"This is a book of power, truth, and magic. When I began reading I longed to roam the Cairngorms, but as the pages turned I wanted only to run out the door, to feel my awakened senses tingling and vital within the ever-present communion of earthen life. Nan Shepherd has woven for us a fearless and wild sacrament--sage, life-changing, utterly beautiful. The Living Mountain is more relevant, more necessary, and more alive than ever." --Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Rooted

"A must-read classic for good reason: glorious prose, deep connection to the living Earth, and arresting insights. Now more than ever we need Shepherd's boundless curiosity and love for our world, elevated by her nuanced and brilliant thought. Macfarlane and Odell's accompanying essays are also essential, inspiring reading." --David George Haskell, biologist and author of The Forest Unseen

About the Author

Nan Shepherd (1893-1981) was a Scottish writer, educator, and poet. An intrepid hiker throughout her life, she spent hundreds of days and journeyed countless miles on foot in the Caingorms of Scotland. She published three novels--The QuarryWood, The Weatherhouse, and A Pass in the Grampians--and a volume of poetry--In the Cairngorms--in an extraordinary six-year burst between 1928 and 1934. After a period of creative silence, she composed The Living Mountain during the Second World War. However, the manuscript was stashed away in a drawer for nearly four decades before its publication in 1977.

Robert Macfarlane is the author of prizewinning and bestselling books about landscape, nature, people, and places, including The Lost Words and Underland. His work has been translated into many languages and his books have been widely adapted for film, television, stage, and radio. In 2017, he was awarded the EM Forster Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Jenny Odell is a multidisciplinary artist and author. Her first book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy was a New York Times bestseller. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Sierra magazine, and other publications. She lives in Oakland, California.