The Quarry Wood (Canongate Classics) - Softcover

Shepherd, Nan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0862411416 ISBN 13: 9780862411411

Publisher: Canongate Books, 1987

Synopsis

When Martha gains a place at the university, her achievement is met with a mixture of hostility and pride by her uncomprehending family. It is there that she meets Luke (married to her friend Dussie) who is to haunt the years that lie ahead as she struggles to cope with the intellectual and emotional challenges that surround her at work and at home.

This is essentially the story of a young woman's journey to maturity and independence, her high ideals, and a slowly-growing awareness of her passionate nature. Nan Shepherd's subtle prose and her understanding of the hidden currents which move people are matched by her intense and memorable descriptions of the natural world, and a dry sense of humour. The book has lost none of its freshness and originality since it met with high praise on publication over seventy years ago - four years before Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song.

About this title

Review:

"A blazingly brilliant writer, a true original" (Robert Macfarlane)

"Spellbinding" (Ali Smith)

"Largely unrecognised during her lifetime, Nan Shepherd is finally being acclaimed for her literary legacy - and her books are influencing a whole new generation of writers" (The Scotsman)

"Shepherd found her own path in life and in literature, and it feels like she's so far ahead of us . . . philosophically and stylistically, she was extraordinary" (Guardian)

"Brilliant . . . Its conflation of ardent philosophising and blunt everyday speech, rendered in vivid dialect, provides a glorious palette" (The List, 100 Best Scottish Books)

"Shepherd is a fierce looker. And like many fierce lookers, she is also a mystic" (Guardian)

Book Description:

Introduced by Roderick Watson

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0862411416
• ISBN 13: 9780862411411
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224