The Savage Landscape

“Intelligent . . . where other nature writers spatter wildflife facts . . . Flyn offers insight. She uses the wild to dose herself against modernity and its alienations—even to treat the condition of humanity itself.”
—The Sunday Times

“Flyn’s stamina is matched by acute sensitivity. She has the travel writer’s gift for living an experience and simultaneously pinning it to the page. Her research is phenomenal, and she writes compellingly of the history of the places she visits.”
—The Spectator

“Cal Flyn goes looking for answers to a troublesome question: what is wilderness? The Savage Landscape is a book of searching in the best sense—full of ideas, beauty, doubts, and adventures.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

“Cal Flyn is one of the most exciting writers around—for the poetry and precision of her prose, for the vast scope of her learning, for her fearless (and self-questioning) spirit. In The Savage Landscape, she opens one door after another, to wonder, to terror, to rich and mixed feelings, so that we can see the world anew and in all its deepest dimensions. This book is at once thrilling adventure and bracing meditation.”
—Pico Iyer, bestselling author of Aflame

“Profound, exhilarating, and suffused with nuanced wit and insight. The Savage Landscape is essential and deeply rewarding reading for all who seek to understand the wild in our psyches and in the world. Flyn’s explorations are bold, sometimes terrifyingly so, and subtly attuned to paradox, fracture, and beauty. A must-read: put this book on the top of your list.”
—David George Haskell, two-time Pulitzer finalist and author of How Flowers Made our World

“Cal Flyn examines our relationship with the wild places of the earth—and the meaning of wilderness itself—with an unflinching eye. The Savage Landscape is a beguiling book: by turns lyrical, learned, and provocative.”
—Ed Caesar, author of The Moth and the Mountain

“Sublime and uplifting. Throughout history, people have been drawn to the wild to seek beauty, wealth, God, or themselves. Encroached upon and endangered today, Cal Flyn reveals how much we can still discover in wilderness, both as an idea and a vital part of the living world.”
—David Farrier, author of Nature’s Genius

“A deep, personal and transporting exploration of what we think nature is and, by extension, who we think we are too. In Flyn’s wise hands, our relationship with the more than human world is revealed to be the most important relationship of all.”
—Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline

“A thrilling, tender, acute tour through the wildernesses of the world outside us and the far wilder worlds inside. Why does the desolate allure? It’s an urgently important, complex question. We need to know for the sake of our souls, our politics, and our planet. Flyn is the perfect guide.”
—Charles Foster, author of Cry of the Wild

“Fascinating and masterfully written, Cal Flyn’s The Savage Landscape is an exploration of wildness in both nature and humankind. Brilliant!”
—Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam

“Cal Flyn has given us a beautiful, engrossing, vitally new view of a most ancient idea. This is a tremendous book, full of wisdom and curiosity, that overwhelmed me with its insights into the natural world and the human heart that loves it so.
—Jaime Green, author of The Possibility of Life and the series editor of Best American Science and Nature Writing

“Flyn delivers an exhilarating exploration of the nature and meaning of wild lands . . . blend[ing] exciting travel writing with deep philosophical discussions. Readers will be forced to rethink what wilderness is and whom it benefits.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A] thoughtful account of journeys to wild places that, one hopes, will remain that way.”
—Kirkus

“An intellectual look at wilderness for those looking for more than the typical armchair adventure.”
—Booklist