Adam Nicolson

Geology’s dry, rocky road

The earthquakes and eruptions that determine Earth’s vastly varied landscape are described by Helen Gordon – perhaps too prosaically

Hills in California near the San Andreas Fault west of Avenal. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 20 February 2021

There has been an argument recently on Twitter about how to do nature-writing. Should it involve the self? Should it be poeticised? Has the oh-my-oh-me-ism of recent nature books got out of hand? Can one not see a blackbird now without considering the nature of consciousness and the tragedy of existence? In short, shouldn’t the nature writers calm down a bit and become ‘more honest’, as one contributor to this row put it?

Egregious sentences were quoted out of context.

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