Book of the Month: The Wild Places, by Robert Macfarlane

In his inspiring new book, The Wild Places, Robert Macfarlane explores the idea and the reality of wildness in the world immediately around him—the British Isles, where "the wild" is commonly assumed to be marginalized at best and on the brink of extinction at worst.

Macfarlane envisions creating "a prose map that would seek to make some of the remaining wild places of the archipelago visible again, or that would record them before they vanished for good." On this quest he immerses himself in a variety of wildnesses in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; he sleeps on summits and sandy strands, ventures by moonlight along a sheer ridge, swims in isolated island lakes, wanders across desolate moors. Along the way he brings these landscapes to pulsing life—and, as with all good journeys, the ultimate lesson of his quest unfurls with its own twists and surprises.

The gifts of Macfarlane's map-quest are manifold. First, he shows that wild places still do exist in Britain and Ireland: Some have names you'll find on any map, like Ynys Enlli and the Coruisk Basin; others you'll find only on Macfarlane's personal chart, like the Tor of the Snow Hares.

His precision in apprehending the world—the crevasses and calluses of bark, the sound of grass crunching "brittlely," the air smelling of minerals and frost, the "mackerel mottling of moonlit clouds"—is a salutary lesson in and of itself.

One more gift is the sharing of knowledge that transfigures this work. Macfarlane is the best kind of guide. He masterfully maps the connections, small and large, that bind these isles, from the way weather shapes contour to the way geology forges topography. He peoples his journey with mentors who have shared his passion for the wild. And he shows how man's strivings, tribulations, and dreams shape a landscape, too.

I didn't want Macfarlane's journey to end—and wonderfully enough, it hasn't. His descriptions have created a new map of Britain and Ireland in my mind. And like pebbles in a pond, those descriptions are now altering the way I look at the world immediately around me: the flowers poking wildly between the pavement outside my home this morning, the liquid amber leaves on my street shimmering mackerel and persimmon in the afternoon sun. This is the final gift of Macfarlane's wild places: They illuminate the wild wonder of our everyday world.