The Snow Geese (Picador Classic, 17) - Softcover

Fiennes, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1447275446 ISBN 13: 9781447275442

Publisher: Picador, 2015

Synopsis

With an introduction by Robert Macfarlane

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Hawthornden Prize.

I had attached myself to the birds. I couldn't move on until the birds moved on, and the birds couldn't move on without the spring.

One winter, after an enforced period of recuperation, William Fiennes finds himself restless and yearning for adventure. He travels to Texas, where he begins a quest to trace the million-strong flocks of snow geese making their spring flight thousands of miles north to the Arctic tundra. On his epic journey he meets people from every walk of life, from ex-nuns to train fanatics, and their stories resound with the longing to arrive at the right place in the world.

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Hawthornden Prize, The Snow Geese is a poignant and lyrical paean to the richness and wonder of the world around us. A unique blend of autobiography, travel and nature writing, this is a classic tale of belonging and the inescapable lure of home.

About this title

Review

Even without the unbridled enthusiasm of such writers as Peter Carey and Marina Warner that emblazon the jacket, a few pages of William Fiennes’ The Snow Geese would instantly alert the reader that this is something very special indeed. A remarkable piece of natural history and a striking book about the very notion of wandering, this is considerably more than travel writing; it is, in fact, a poetic vision that evokes the splendours and terrors of the Canadian Arctic in a fashion that goes beyond mere description. Perfectly judged prose gives a vision of the natural world that transports the reader utterly.

Snow geese spend each summer in the Canadian Arctic on the Tundra. Every autumn they migrate south to Delaware, California and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the spring they wing northwards again. Fascinated by this, William Fiennes made the decision to go with them and write about his travels. But the result turned out to be about so much more than the migration of geese. This synthesis of autobiography and reportage settles into its real subject swiftly: homecoming, and the powerful pull of the concept of home that motivates us all. The author’s daunting physical adventure is also a meditation on the philosophy of natural science and even the act of autobiography. The sheer energy of the book is mesmerising, and however subtle the writing, we read on transfixed--always relating these strange odysseys to our own travels in the world. The Snow Geese may change your very perception of what home means to you. --Barry Forshaw

Review

Why are we drawn to birds, to landscape, to nature? It is for the sense of wonder - and in capturing that sense of wonder, Fiennes reminds us how desperately we all need it (Sunday Telegraph)

The Snow Geese moved me as have few other recent books. No one who reads it is likely to continue to look at the world in the same way (Times Literary Supplement)

A beautifully solitary and beautifully reflective book (Evening Standard)

The descriptions of the geese and their environment are jaw-droppingly beautiful. But Fiennes' most remarkable talent is for describing the quotidian with such freshness that it is like seeing the world for the first time (Mail on Sunday)

An inspired work of natural history and travel. A classic (Irish Independent)

His sharp eye and his inventive similes take us everywhere with him . . . an unmistakably gifted writer (The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1447275446
• ISBN 13: 9781447275442
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256