Exploring the Majestic Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland: A Celebration of Nature in The Living Mountain

ana: 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.

Spain on Oct 25, 2023

Deb: Really interesting read of the geology of the Cairngorms.

United Kingdom on Sep 15, 2023

Jane: Great gift

United Kingdom on Aug 19, 2023

Robert M. Hall: A compelling introduction to the brilliance of Nan Shepard and the beauty of the Cairngorms. Loved everything about this!

United States on May 31, 2023

Mary: 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

Canada on Dec 31, 2022

CBx: Billed as a prose poem of the author's encounters with the mountain, this brief book is divided into chapters with alluring titles such as "Sleep". Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of the author's encounters with the Cairngorm mountains. The descriptions are clear and vivid, but I found my experience of the book clouded by a few things.
One was the author's tone at times. When not talking about her experiences directly, there was something proscriptive that entered into it. For example, there is one passage where she speaks about walking with young people, which she says can be fun unless they try and make conversation. Certainly some conversation is more amenable to experiencing one's surroundings than other, but I came away from that passage wondering if she insisted on mostly silence when walking with others.
Another was the imagery she described. When she talked about visuals such as ice forming on running water, I immediately pictured images from various nature documentaries. For me at least, some of the freshness of the narrative was covered by some of the images I have already seen.
Finally, and probably most impactfully, was Robert MacFarlane's...

United States on Jan 16, 2022

Matthew: I love this book, and I’m puzzled by some of the low starring reviewers irritated by the fact that it isn’t a travel guide to the Cairngorms. It is, as the author writes, “a tale of my traffic with a mountain.” It’s a 108 page meditation on encounter, and as others here testify, it’s extraordinarily beautiful. I only have two complaints, and neither of them have anything to do with Nan Shepherd’s writing. First, Robert Macfarlane’s ponderous introduction nearly drove me away from the book with horsewhips and clouds of biting flies before I had ever reached a single word of the author’s own gracious prose. Also, I can’t tell you how irrationally bothered I am by the fact that my Canongate edition has a photograph of an American pronghorn antelope on the cover. Love the animal, but it doesn’t belong here. I guess someone thought any four-legged thing standing in the snow would do.

United States on Jul 29, 2021

Marc L: At first glance, this seems like a deceptively simple and modest book: Nan Shepherd describes her experiences and explorations in the Cairgorm Mountains in northeastern Scotland, a region she has lived in for decades, in the first halve of the 20th century. The Cairgorms is in essence a huge granite plateau (one of the highest in Europe), with a few bulges, cut through by unsightly rivers, some lochs and especially overgrown with heather. All in all a very scanty landscape where the wind is the master.
It is the way in which Shepherd describes this inhospitable landscape that is really captivating. She brings a very detailed picture of what can be seen and experienced on the Cairgorms: the sights, the sounds, the light, the water, the smells , the plants and animals, the human tracks, and so on. That does not seem spectacular, especially in the beginning. But gradually, the mountain comes ”to live" and that is foremost due to the writing process. Shepherd makes the utmost of her senses while walking through the region, often also sleeping outdoors, or experiencing extreme weather phenomena. And she always makes a link between what she sees/hears/smells... and what this does...

Germany on Sep 22, 2020

HMS Warspite: 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.

United States on Apr 11, 2020

VerbRiver: 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”...

United States on Feb 05, 2020