Description
Book Synopsis''Poetic and profound, Time and Tide is wise, considered and full of surprises'' Observer
''Poignant and touching'' Mail on Sunday
''Miraculous'' Scotsman
A village waits at the bottom of a reservoir. A monkey puzzle tree bristles in a suburban garden. A skein of wild geese fly over a rusty rail viaduct. The vast inland sea that awed John Clare has become fields.
Chapter by fascinating chapter, alive with literary, local, and her own family history, Fiona Stafford reveals the forces, both natural and human, which transform places. Swooping along coastlines, through forests and across fens, following in the footsteps of Burns and Keats, Celia Fiennes and Charles Dickens, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Noel Coward and Compton Mackenzie, join her, time-travelling deep into the stories of our Isles.
From red squirrels to brick vistas, from botanical gardens to hot springs, the landscapes of
Trade Review
Consistently and continuously engaging, indeed compelling . . . an invigoration to read and a pleasure to hold, in the hands as in the memory. The book initiates and extends a new genre, where autobiographical components exemplify an investment of personal commitment, while scholarly objectivity complements an emotional trust in a community of sympathy. It's a pleasure to read, and reread, and return to, and give as a gift to all friends whose values might be shared in celebration -- Professor Alan Riach
Engaging . . . personal, gentle, meandering . . . Yet buzzing with surprising connections and brilliant cross-references. Shot through with tender delights and unexpected revelations! -- Richard Holmes
Fiona Stafford unpeels layers and layers of Britain's landscape to reveal the stories within. A fascinating compendium of people and places and how they endlessly interact to change each other -- Philip Marsden
Oxford English professor Stafford's acclaimed The Long, Long Life of Trees was a Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year. Her literary gifts are once again on display in this enchanting exploration of the ways in which the land and skyscape of the UK are constantly shifting. Following in the footsteps of John Keats, Celia Fiennes and Wilkie Collins, we journey with her from the Fens to the Humber, and from Cornwall to the north coast of Ireland, marvelling at red kites and red squirrels, monkey puzzle trees and the resilience of nature * Bookseller, Editor’s Choice for February *
An engrossing tour of our North Atlantic archipelago, Stafford has a historical X-ray vision which allows her to look through the surface of a given landscape and describe what lies beneath . . . Miraculous . . . If landscape writing is evolving, this book is a good indication of where it's going next * Scotsman *
A fascinating book to be enjoyed in front of a cosy fire whiling away a rainy Sunday afternoon... taking in as it does Fingal's Cave, the drowned village of Capel Celyn in Wales, the Hebridean island of Barra, which inspired Whisky Galore, to the place where the first monkey puzzle tree was so named (Pencarrow in Cornwall) and even the wreck of the Spanish Armada off Streedagh in Sligo. You feel that you are there with Stafford, tramping across fens, buffeted by waves along rugged coastlines or peering down iron mines to see the red ochre. Both literary and erudite . . . poignant and touching . . . Time and Tide is often very funny * Mail on Sunday *
A highly rewarding book studded with curiosities, surprises and exhilarating insights * Literary Review *
