Description
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE
A journey told through stories and songs into Doggerland, the ancient region that once joined the east coast of England to Holland
Time Song tells of the creation, the existence and the loss of a country now called Doggerland, a huge and fertile area that once connected the entire east coast of England with mainland Europe, until it was finally submerged by rising sea levels around 5000 BC.
Julia Blackburn mixes fragments from her own life with a series of eighteen 'songs' and all sorts of stories about the places and the people she meets in her quest to get closer to an understanding of this vanished land. She sees the footprints of early humans fossilised in the soft mud of an estuary alongside the scattered pockmarks made by rain falling eight thousand years ago. She visits a cave where the remnants of a Neanderthal meal have turned to stone. In Denmark she sits beside Tollund Man who, despite having lain in a peat bog since the start of the Bronze Age, seems to be about to wake from a dream...
'This book is a wonder' Adam Nicolson, Spectator
'A clairvoyant and poetic conversation with the past' Antony Gormley
Trade ReviewA poetic and fascinating exploration of life on Doggerland... This is one of the only books I've ever read that has made me feel better about climate change. * Guardian *Book of the Week* *
A magical, mesmerising book - a book which makes you feel giddy at the thought of the deep gulf of history hidden just beneath your feet. * Scotsman *
Breathtaking... [a] splendidly rich book... I admire the intelligence, the appetite for discovery and the shining imagination that have gone into [
Time Song]. * Literary Review *
Julia Blackburn's marvellous
Time Song: Searching for Doggerland...is startling, funny and often very moving. -- Simon Winder * New Statesman, *Books of the Year* *
[
Time Song] is time travel... wonderful. * Observer *
