Wild

Author Amy Jeffs
Narrator Amy Jeffs, Lucy Paterson
Publisher Quercus
Run Time 3 hours and 41 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Climate change, Landscapes / seascapes, Myths and Legends, Nature and the natural world: general interest, The Arts, The environment.

Listen to a sample

What to expect

From the bestselling author of Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain comes a book that will reconnect, engross and indulge readers in wild landscapes and pause to reflect on our current position and relationship with nature. This unique audiobook features 7 original songs - musical illustrations composed and performed by the author and her collaborators.

Sheer cliffs, salt spray, explosive sea spume, thunderous clouds, icy waves, whales with mountains on their backs, sleet, bitter winds, bleak, impenetrable marshes, howling wolves, forests, the unceasing cries of birds and the death grip of subterranean vaults that have never seen the sun: these are wild landscapes of a world almost familiar.

In Wild, Amy Jeffs journeys - on foot and through medieval texts - from landscapes of desolation to hope, offering the reader an insight into a world at once distant and profoundly close to home. The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world. From the Old English elegies to the englynion and immrama of the Celtic world - stories that largely represent figures whose voices are not generally heard in the corpus of medieval literature: women, outcasts, animals.

All songs written by Amy Jeffs except for Colours, written by Robbie Haylett.

1. All Alone (Hos)
2. The Seafarer
3. Sweeney
4. The Whale
5. Wulf
6. Colours
7. Island of Birds

Arrangements by Robbie Haylett. Performances by Amy Jeffs, Robbie Haylett, Stephen Wilkinson, Christina Riedl, Will Rumney, Chris Keelty and Natalie Brice.

(P) 2022 Quercus Editions Limited

Critics Review

A beautiful retelling of British myths and exquisitely illustrated too.

James Holland on Storyland, Daily Express (Book of the Year)

This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about “the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from.”

The Times (On Storyland)

Marries words and images to create a special echo of this country’s rich past.

The Times

Jeffs is the narrator, providing a reading that is suffused with portent and otherworldliness. Listeners gain a series of folk songs, written and performed by Jeffs, each of which adds a thrilling new dimension to these ancient fables.

Guardian (Audiobook of the Week)

Across seven themed chapters the Storyland author presents an inspiring excavation of the British countryside through diverse medieval texts.

Waterstones (The Best History Books of 2022)

Jeffs teases out nuance, divining moral and metaphorical meaning from each story, and questions ways that this living history of Britain impacts upon our present-day understanding of landscape. The writing throughout is celebratory and evocative.

Art Quarterly

Jeffs has a gift for breathing new life into ancient stories through her lyrical writing, deep research and evocative woodcuts. She connects our mythic history to the landscape with delicacy and humour. Reading Wild feels like being led by the hand through a gnarled, old growth forest, along empty shoreflats, and along the edge of windswept cliffs – and shown how to experience them through medieval eyes. It’s a jewel of a book.

Natalie Lawrence - co-author of Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence

Immersive . . . Her stories are arranged across seven chapters – Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe and Paradise. Jeffs, a medieval scholar with her own wild streak, introduces each in confident, forceful tones. She also sings six of her songs, accompanied by early musical instruments. Lucy Paterson, who has one of those warm, low,
rich voices that can hold you mesmerised, tells the tales.

The Times (Audiobook of the Week)

An extraordinarily multidimensional work, moving seamlessly from creative retellings of the stories to explanations of the texts and where they came from, underpinned all the time by sound academic understanding. Those reading the print version can marvel at the extraordinary black-and-white wood cuttings that break up the chapters, while those enjoying the audiobook version can listen to music inspired by the same tales.

Countryfile Magazine (Best nature and wildlife books for 2023)

This beautiful book . . . takes the reader back into the medieval mind, exploring ancient myths and poems rooted deep in the British landscape.

Wiltshire Life

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