Time Song

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What to expect

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE A journey told through stories and songs into Doggerland, the ancient region that once joined the east coast of England to Holland. Time Song tells of the creation, the existence and the loss of a country now called Doggerland, a huge and fertile area that once connected the entire east coast of England with mainland Europe, until it was finally submerged by rising sea levels around 5000 BC. Blackburn mixes fragments from her own life with a series of eighteen 'songs' and all sorts of stories about the places and the people she meets in her quest to get closer to an understanding of Doggerland. She sees the footprints of early humans fossilised in the soft mud of an estuary alongside the scattered pockmarks made by rain falling eight thousand years ago. She visits a cave where the remnants of a Neanderthal meal have turned to stone. In Denmark she sits beside Tollund Man who seems to be about to wake from a dream, even though he has lain in a peat bog since the start of the Iron Age.

Critics Review

A clairvoyant and poetic conversation with the past

Anthony Gormley

A poetic and fascinating exploration of life on Doggerland. ….one of the only books I have read that has made me feel better about climate change.

Olivia Laing

The combination of wry observations and personal reflections makes Time Song gripping.’

The Economist

This book is a wonder.

The Spectator

Blackburn’s book is startling, funny and often very moving.

New Statesman books of the year

Time Song is wildly discursive and intensely personal.

Daily Telegraph

Time Song is not a straightforward book about Doggerland. It is much more interesting than that… Time Song is richly peopled, Blackburn’s unflagging curiosity and sharp eye bringing a diverse cast of characters vividly to life. She sifts their stories not just for information, but for meaning; she’s conjuring for us not merely the facts of Doggerland, but the weight of its omission from our history books, our collective memory and our imaginations.

Financial Times

A poetic and fascinating exploration of life on Doggerland… This is one of the only books I’ve ever read that has made me feel better about climate change.’

Guardian Book of the Week

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