A book and a resource for those who are or still wish to be more connected to their landscapes, wild or cultivated, mountainous or flat, huge as the sea or a shallow as a puddle in a farmyard. Or perhaps you might relish knowing twenty different names for poo, one for every animal, not to mention for the condition of said item. Seriously, there are words for dry cracked soil, for the holes at the bottoms of hedges small animals make squeezing through (sometimes specialized names, depending on size), words for a small thorny thicket as opposed to a larger thicket composed more of young beech and alder. These words are like the bones that remain from the time when observing, knowing, calculating when to plow, when to plant, when to move the sheep mattered. MacFarlane takes the reader on a tour that will also lengthen your must read book, from the Cairngorms of Nan Shepherd to the Sierras of John Muir, your "must read" booklist will lengthen. The bibliography at the end is a wonderful resource -- with headings like: "On Close Attention" and "On Wonder." Somewhere near the start of the book MacFarlane mentions that The Oxford Junior Dictionary has dropped the word 'acorn' on the basis of what kids cares or needs to know? Between 1970 and 2010 the outdoor areas where children were permitted to play on their own has shrunk 90%. What does that mean for the future? ***** ( )

I think this book will gather another half star as I flick though it looking at the words lists again. I took my time with the book - reading the word lists as well as the chapters, a few each night to drift with into the night. ( )

I like this guy, I like how he thinks and how he describes what he sees. He is an outside kind of guy, big boots, Anorak, hiking staff you know the kind, but real smart and heartfelt. I really do like him. This book is about words for things seen outside like woods, rivers, trees and other external phenomena. It is comprehensive and exhaustive if at times exhausting.

I am very reluctant to say a negative word or imply that this is anything less that marvellous but I did find it a bit tedious. And I accept wholeheartedly that it is my failing not his. ( )

A beautiful and expansive book about the breadth of language, particularly that which relates to landscape. Complete with glossaries of precise terms from the UK and Ireland, the book also tells the story of different people who lived with a love of language and landscape. Keenly written with humour and a literary flair. Wonderful. ( )

The power of words to shape our sense of place - beetle-scrunchers, thunder-lumps, lick-ups - https://wanderlustandwords.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-power-of-words.html