Search results for ""Author Jay Griffiths""

WINNER OF THE ORION BOOK AWARD Part travelogue, part manifesto for wildness as an essential character of life, Wild is a one-of-a-kind book from a one-of-a-kind author'Undefinable, untameable, profound and extraordinary' Observer _________________________'I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money and energy. Part of the journey was a green riot and part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well. I went to the freedom fighters of West Papua and sang my head off in their highlands. I met cannibals infinitely kinder and more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelize them. I found a paradox of wildness in the glinting softness of its charisma, for what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle and what is wild is kind. In the end - a strangely sweet result - I came back to a wild home.' Wild describes an extraordinary odyssey, courageous and sometimes dangerous. It is by turns funny, touching and harrowing, and offers a poetic consideration of the tender connection between human society and wildlands. _________________________'Easily the best travel book that I have read in the last ten years' Guardian 'Wild is like nothing else I've ever read: thrilling, troubling, frightening, exhilarating. This is a truly necessary book, and we are all lucky that the subject found a writer worthy of it' Philip Pullman'Passionate, rigorous and utterly honest, Griffiths's remarkable book is written in a style as wild and exciting as its subject' Robert Macfarlane

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'If bravery itself could write, it would write like she does' John BergerWhy rebel?Because our footprint on the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or of theft, has never been more important.Because we need a politics of kindness, but the very opposite is on the rise. Libertarian fascism, with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny - a politics that loathes the living world.Because nature is not a hobby. It is the life on which we depend, as Indigenous societies have never forgotten.Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars, and they are lining up now to write rebellion across the skies.From the author of Wild, this passionate, poetic manifesto for urgent rebellion is also a paean to the deep and extraordinary beauty of the natural world.‘Jay Griffiths helped redefine activism for a generation, combining detailed research with a poet’s flair for language. Her works defy categorisation and fizz with original ideas and excitement’ Byline Times'Jay's writing has reduced me to hot throbs of grief; through beauty and subtlety, to the depths of the hurt of these times . . . and what a liberation to express this, to free the space in my chest to feel the love that propels me forwards' Gail Bradbrook'Chewy, erudite, filled with swing: this is a dazzling book, urgent without ever being worthy, a book that crackles. Why Rebel is a Tardis, to read it is to enter the massive, a deep interior that hydrates vocation in a time of trouble' Martin Shaw'This short book is beautifully written, and packs a powerful emotional punch. I found myself welling up as I reached the end. At this desperate moment in human history, Why Rebel is surely part of the wake-up call we need' Prof. Rupert Read'There's a book called Life and Fate and in it, it says that when surrounded by death and destruction the most human thing to do is to engage in an act of kindness. Jay's book is such an act' Roger Hallam

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This new book of essays from the author of Wild tracks the turning light of the day and seasons, an almanac of the turning times. Beginning in night and winter, it moves to dawn and spring, then noon and summer and finally evening and autumn. Set partly at the author's home in Wales, the book journeys widely, searching for a dead father in Prague, listening to the Sky-Grandmothers of Mexican myth and staying with the people of West Papua who, when they know they will fall over laughing, lie down first. It asks: what is the real gift of the misunderstood Goddess Nemesis? Why should flowers be prescribed as medicine? What do male zebra finches dream of? Where do the sands of time run fastest, and how is that connected to the age of anxiety? It explores the dawn chorus; the tradition of sacred hospitality; dust from the time before the sun even existed; the twilight time of the trickster and the daily rituals of morning. In all of these it asks: why does light, through the hours of the day and the seasons of the year, affect us? Griffiths concludes this extraordinary collection by deciding that light is in fact how we think.

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A sharp green tale from the award-winning author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time and Wild: An Elemental Journey. “Boiling hot day, McTypical McSuburb, McTypical McSunday. I’m watching the neighbours, going into their gardens to mow the litter... YA BASTARDOS! VIVA LA-FUCK-THIS-FOR-A-LIFADISTAS...” So begins a young man’s search for freedom, leaving the confines of Wimbly and finding himself living in a treehouse, a partner in grime with the road protesters of Newbury.

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