num_pages: 340
description: 'I am dreaming of the edge-land again'After moving from London to a new home in Yorkshire Rob Cowen finds himself on unfamiliar territory disoriented hemmed in by winter and yearning for the nearest open space. So one night he sets out to find it  a pylon-slung edge-land a tangle of wood meadow field and river on the outskirts of town. Despite being in the shadow of thousands of houses it feels unclaimed forgotten caught between worlds and all the more magical for it.Obsessively revisiting this contested ground Cowen ventures deeper into its many layers and lives documenting its changes through time and season and unearthing histories that profoundly resonate and intertwine with transformative events happening in his own life.Blurring the boundaries of memoir natural history and novel Common Ground offers nothing less than an enthralling new way of writing about nature and our experiences within it. We encounter the edge-land's inhabitants in immersive kaleidoscopic detail as their voices and visions rise from the fields and woods: beasts birds insects plants and people  the beggars sages and lovers across the ages.Startlingly personal and poetic this is a unique portrait of a forgotten realm and a remarkable evocation of how over the course of a year a man came to know himself once more by unlocking it. But above all this is a book that reasserts a vital truth: nature isnt just found in some remote mountain or protected park. It is all around us. It is in us. It is us.
language: English
title: Common Ground
publisher: Hutchinson