Paul Farley

A fine set of meditations on those lacunae and interstices of wildness, or at least less emphatically domesticated space, found on the urban periphery and sometimes near its core. Witty and entertaining with lots of fun observations. If you’re in the mood to visit, political, philosophical and environmental themes are there, like edgelands of the text. Despite the jolts the world has experienced since the book’s publication, edgelands, being outside the milieu, haven’t changed much. Long may that continue.… (mehr)

Most of the non-fiction I read has an element of nature writing about it, but this book is rather more than that. Farley and Roberts aim is to reclaim and celebrate the edgelands that surround our cities, and the book is a fascinating account of the way landscapes are developed either by human intervention or by nature reclaiming what is left behind after human activity.

Both writers are poets, so the book is inevitably reflective and personal, despite the joint authorial voice which makes it impossible to deduce who wrote which parts of it. Many other poets and artists are cited.

Each chapter has a one word title encapsulating its theme - most of them specific human activities ranging from den-building and mining to hotels and airports, and the whole makes a fascinating portrait of the England that many of us take for granted.… (mehr)