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$3.40The Story
All too often, we think of nature as something distinct from ourselves, something to go and see, a place thats separate from the ordinary modern world in which we live and work. But if we take the time to look, we soon find thats not how nature works. Even in our parceledout, pavedover urban environs, nature is all around us; it is in us. It is us.Thats what Rob Cowen discovered after moving to a new home in northern England. After ten years in London he was suddenly adrift, searching for a sense of connection. He found himself drawn to a squaremile patch of waste ground at the edge of town. Scrappy, weedfilled, this heartshaped tangle of land was the very definition of overlookeda thoroughly inbetween place that capitalism no longer had any use for, leaving nature to take its course. Wandering its meadows, woods, hedges, and fields, Cowen found it was also a magical, mysterious place, haunted and haunting, abandoned but wildly aliveand he fell in fascinated love.Common Ground is a true account of that place and Cowens transformative journey through its layers and lives, but its much more too. As the lands stories intertwine with events in his own lifeand he learns he is to become a father for the first timethe divisions between human and nature begin to blur and shift. The place turns out to be a mirror, revealing what we are, what were not and how those two things are ultimately inseparable.This is a book about discovering a new world, a forgotten world on the fringes of our daily lives, and the richness that comes from uncovering the stories and livesanimal and humancontained within. It is an unforgettable piece of nature writing, part of a brilliant tradition that stretches from Gilbert White to Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald.I am dreaming of the edgeland again, Cowen writes. Read Common Ground, and you, too, will be dreaming of the spaces in between, and whatincluding usthrives there.
Description
All too often, we think of nature as something distinct from ourselves, something to go and see, a place thats separate from the ordinary modern world in which we live and work. But if we take the time to look, we soon find thats not how nature works. Even in our parceledout, pavedover urban environs, nature is all around us; it is in us. It is us.Thats what Rob Cowen discovered after moving to a new home in northern England. After ten years in London he was suddenly adrift, searching for a sense of connection. He found himself drawn to a squaremile patch of waste ground at the edge of town. Scrappy, weedfilled, this heartshaped tangle of land was the very definition of overlookeda thoroughly inbetween place that capitalism no longer had any use for, leaving nature to take its course. Wandering its meadows, woods, hedges, and fields, Cowen found it was also a magical, mysterious place, haunted and haunting, abandoned but wildly aliveand he fell in fascinated love.Common Ground is a true account of that place and Cowens transformative journey through its layers and lives, but its much more too. As the lands stories intertwine with events in his own lifeand he learns he is to become a father for the first timethe divisions between human and nature begin to blur and shift. The place turns out to be a mirror, revealing what we are, what were not and how those two things are ultimately inseparable.This is a book about discovering a new world, a forgotten world on the fringes of our daily lives, and the richness that comes from uncovering the stories and livesanimal and humancontained within. It is an unforgettable piece of nature writing, part of a brilliant tradition that stretches from Gilbert White to Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald.I am dreaming of the edgeland again, Cowen writes. Read Common Ground, and you, too, will be dreaming of the spaces in between, and whatincluding usthrives there.
