In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. 
Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (Canons)

History

Shepherd, Nan

Europe

Canongate Canons

When Martha gains a place at the university, her achievement is met with a mixture of hostility and pride by her uncomprehending family. It is there that she meets Luke (married to her friend Dussie) who is to haunt the years that lie ahead as she struggles to cope with the intellectual and emotional challenges that surround her at work and at home.This is essentially the story of a young woman's journey to maturity and independence, her high ideals, and a slowly-growing awareness of her passionate nature. Nan Shepherd's subtle prose and her understanding of the hidden currents which move people are matched by her intense and memorable descriptions of the natural world, and a dry sense of humour. The book has lost none of its freshness and originality since it met with high praise on publication over seventy years ago - four years before Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song.

Quarry Wood (Canons, 76)

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Canongate UK

Introduced by Roderick Watson. Garry Forbes comes home from the trenches, suffering from shellshock, to find a local girl claiming to have been engaged to one of his dead friends. He sets out to expose her fantasies by cleaving to his simple view of reality. The truths of inner experience, however, are more elusive and fluid than he ever imagined and he is compelled to acquire a more subtle outlook on life and people. The tiny community of Fetter-Rothie, with all its gossip and petty scandal, is delightfully realised in every detail. Yet Nan Shepherd builds a novel of great penetration and power within this small canvas, animated by images of light, darkness and space, and always informed by a Chekhovian eye for the humour, terror and strangeness to be found in everyday life. Nan Shepherd's first novel The Quarry Wood was highly acclaimed when re-issued as a Canongate Classic. This, her second novel, is considered to be her masterpiece.

The Weatherhouse (Canongate Classic)

Canongate Books Ltd.

The Quarry Wood, although published well before Sunset Song, inhabits a similar world; the progress of its heroine could almost be the alternative story of a Chris Guthrie who did go to university. Compassionate and humorous, the grace and style of Shepherd's prose is heightened by a superb ear for the vigorous language of the north-east. The Weatherhouse, Shepherd's masterpiece, is an even more substantial achievement which belongs to the great line of Scottish fiction dealing with the complex interactions of small communities, and especially the community of women - a touching and hilarious network of mothers, daughters, spinsters and widows. It is also a striking meditation on the nature of truth, the power of human longing and the mystery of being. The third and final novel, A Pass in the Grampians, describes Jenny Kilgour's coming of age as she has to choose between the kindly harshness of her grandfather's life on a remote hill farm, and the vulgar and glorious energy of Bella Cassie, a local girl who left the community to pursue success as a singer, and has now returned to scandalise them all. The Living Mountain is a lyrical testament in praise of the Cairngorms. It is a work deeply rooted in Shepherd's knowledge of the natural world, and a poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing for high and holy places.
This omnibus edition of Shepherd's prose works reveals how her sensitivity and powers of observation raise her work far above the status of regional literature and into the front rank of Scottish writing.

The Grampian Quartet: The Quarry Wood: The Weatherhouse: A Pass in the Grampians: The Living Mountain (Canongate Classics)

CANONGATE BOOKS *

The Living Mountain

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

Scribner

The women of the tiny town of Fetter-Rothnie have grown used to a life without men, and none more so than the tangle of mothers and daughters, spinsters and widows living at the Weatherhouse. Returned from war with shellshock, Garry Forbes is drawn into their circle as he struggles to build a new understanding of the world from the ruins of his grief.
In The Weatherhouse Nan Shepherd paints an exquisite portrait of a community coming to terms with the brutal losses of war, and the small tragedies, yearnings and delusions that make up a life.

The Weatherhouse (Canons)

Classics

When Martha accepts a place at university, her decision is met with a mixture of hostility and pride by her uncomprehending family. This is the story of a young woman's journey to maturity and independence, struggling to cope with the intellectual and emotional challenges that surround her, at a time when such space was rarely given freely to women. In The Quarry Wood,Nan Shepherd's subtle prose is matched with intense and memorable descriptions of the natural world, and a dry sense of humour. Ninety years after the first publication, it remains as fresh and original today.

The Quarry Wood (Canons, 76)

Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. 
 Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the “essential nature” of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (Canons, 6)

The Living Mountain is a lyrical testament in praise of the Cairngorms. It is a work deeply rooted in Nan Shepherd's knowledge of the natural world, and a poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing for high and holy places. Drawing on different perspectives of the mountain environment, Shepherd makes the familiar strange and the strange awe-inspiring. Her sensitivity and powers of observation put her into the front rank of nature writing.

In the Cairngorms

Poetry

Galileo Publishers

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shepherd, Nan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Shepherd, Nan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shepherd, Nan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (Canons)

Quarry Wood (Canons, 76)

The Weatherhouse (Canongate Classic)

The Grampian Quartet: The Quarry Wood: The Weatherhouse: A Pass in the Grampians: The Living Mountain (Canongate Classics)

The Living Mountain

The Weatherhouse (Canons)

The Quarry Wood (Canons, 76)

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (Canons, 6)

The Living Mountain

In the Cairngorms