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Acclaimed Scottish journalist and nature writer Cal Flyn is the author of Thicker Than Water and Islands of Abandonment. In her new book, The Savage Landscape, she travels to remote corners of the world while wrestling with the meaning of wilderness. Below are her six favorite books.
‘Dart’ by Alice Oswald (2002)
A strange, potent, even mystical text, Dart is a polyphonic poem that flows down England’s River Dart from source to sea, as voiced by those who frequent it: anglers, canoeists, naturalists, sewer workers—and occasionally the otherworldly voice of the river itself. I recommend this book to someone about once a week. Buy it here.
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‘The Light Eaters’ by Zöe Schlanger (2024)
A work of soulful science writing, The Light Eaters brings together many recent, confounding botanical findings that raise provocative questions about the sentience of the vegetable world. Intelligent and responsibly reported, but still wondrous and full of possibility. Buy it here.
‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ by Rebecca Solnit (2005)
This must be my favorite of Solnit’s books, amid stiff competition. (I also have a soft spot for 2003’s River of Shadows.) As befits the title, Solnit offers meandering meditations on exploration, art, and family history. Her book’s beauty reminds me of the pleasures of the freely roaming mind. Buy it here.
‘Fathoms’ by Rebecca Giggs (2020)
Elegantly interweaving natural history, science writing, philosophy, and cultural criticism, this contemplative book concerns the lives and impact of our cetacean cousins. Factual yet as haunting as any fiction. Giggs does what I’m looking for in a writer: She makes me look at the world anew. Buy it here.
‘Osebol’ by Marit Kapla (2019)
Composed of poetic extracts from interviews Kapla recorded with residents of a settlement deep in the Swedish forest, this book offers a collage of everyday gripes, lyricism expressed in everyday language, and unexpected glimpses of the sublime. I recognized those clashing chords from my time living on an island off the far north coast of Scotland. Buy it here.
‘The Animals in That Country’ by Laura Jean McKay (2020)
McKay’s novel is a mind-expanding work of speculative fiction in which an epidemic of “zooflu” allows people to suddenly hear the voices of animals. This is not the cutesy, singsong world of Disney, but a deafening chorus of demands and unsettling declarations. Hilarious, surprising, and disconcerting. Buy it here.
