A collection of essays about geology and the ground beneath our feet first heard on BBC Radio Three, from some of our leading landscape and nature writers. Contributors include John Burnside, Alan Garner, Linda Cracknell, Sara Maitland and Esther Woolfson.
Adapted from the successful BBC Radio 3 series, Cornerstones explores how different rock types give rise to their own distinct flora and fauna, and even affect the food we eat. Some of the authors express a sense of awe in the face of the abyss of time that is locked into the lie of the land, a sense that jostles up against our own fleeting encounters with it. For example, Sara Maitland tries to grasp the extraordinary journey through space and time that's been undertaken by Lewisiangneiss, one of the most ancient of rocks found in the UK, while Alan Garner captures the ways in which flint has enabled and accompanied human evolution, ever since our ancestors walked out of Africa with it, stone in hand.
A collection of essays about landscape, from Dartmoor to the Arctic, from a range of the UK's leading nature writers. As heard on the BBC Radio 3 series of the same name, the writers include Alan Garner, Daniel Kalder and Sarah Moss.
Mark Smalley lives on a ridge in Bristol complete with subsidence, and was brought up on claggy London clays and beautiful warm Northamptonshire ironstone. He's been a BBC radio producer for over 20 years when some of the best fun has been had recording programmes outdoors in the landscape, hunkered down in the lee of a wall, trying to convey why place matters so much to people. Perhaps a folk memory, but doing geography and a little geology at school somehow only became real when first encountering glaciated valleys in the flesh, in the Lake District. His previous books were educational ones about Europe.
Contributors: john burnsidelinda cracknellalan garnergillian clarkesue cliffordtim deepaul evansrose ferrabyalyson hallettfiona hamiltondiane johnsondaniel kalderjason marksara maitlandhelen mortgina moseleysarah mosspeter randall-pageronald turnbullsara wheeleresther woolfson
A collection of essays from Dartmoor to the Artic as heard on the BBC Radio Three Series.