Wild: An Elemental Journey Book

WINNER OF THE ORION BOOK AWARD Part travelogue, part manifesto for wildness as an essential character of life, Wild is a one-of-a-kind book from a one-of-a-kind author'Undefinable, untameable, profound and extraordinary' Observer_________________________'I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money and energy. Part of the journey was a green riot and part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well. I went to the freedom fighters of West Papua and sang my head off in their highlands. I met cannibals infinitely kinder and more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelize them. I found a paradox of wildness in the glinting softness of its charisma, for what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle and what is wild is kind. In the end - a strangely sweet result - I came back to a wild home.'Wild describes an extraordinary odyssey, courageous and sometimes dangerous. It is by turns funny, touching and harrowing, and offers a poetic consideration of the tender connection between human society and wildlands. _________________________'Easily the best travel book that I have read in the last ten years' Guardian'Wild is likenothing else I've ever read: thrilling, troubling, frightening, exhilarating. This is a truly necessary book, and we are all lucky that the subject found a writer worthy of it' Philip Pullman'Passionate, rigorous and utterly honest, Griffiths's remarkable book is written in a style as wild and exciting as its subject' Robert Macfarlane

Wild : Paperback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780141006444 : 0141006447 : 13 Mar 2009 : Discusses the author's journey, telling how he went to the freedom fighters of West Papua and sang his head off in their highlands; met cannibals infinitely kinder and more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelize them; and, how he anchored a boat to an iceberg where polar bears slept, ate witchetty grubs and visited sea gypsies.