Welcome to Litsy!

Not unlike The Old Ways (which I recently finished) in the way Macfarlane presents his subject. Lyrical, visually detailed, a bit rambling. I was able to stay more focused on Underland than I was The Old Ways however. Not sure if it‘s just that the subject matter interested me more or if Mathew Waterson‘s voice is less calming than Robin Sachs‘. Regardless, I am quite enjoying Macfarlane‘s work, but I think next time I‘ll read a print copy.

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join in if you want!

#ABookADay2023

Underland is for my in-person book club (actually back in person this month after being virtual the last few years!) I love nonfiction and science books but I‘m having a really hard time getting into this one. Maybe it‘s just me - but my husband found it mid as well.

Giant‘s Bread is superb so far - looking forward to discussing it with the #MaryWestmacottBuddyRead #LMWBR

If you love the florid English nature writing tradition, this book is your jam. Get it. Get it NOW.

If florid English nature writing makes you gnash your teeth in frustration and moan in despair, stay far, far away from UNDERLAND. It ain‘t worth it. Not even for the Paris catacombs.

(Who DOESN‘T love the catacombs?)

(Aside from claustrophobes.)

(I didn‘t even get that far. BOO. Anyone have any recs for non-florid catacomby nonfiction?)

Such a fascinating read. The section about the catacombs in Paris was probably my favorite. Macfarlane explores so much of the world beneath our feet that I never really thought about.

I loved his personal stories mixed with his adventures into the underland. The book was extremely informative but not dry.

“We are often more tender to the dead than to the living, though it is the living who need our tenderness most”

“A story of journeys into darkness, and of descents made in search of knowledge…from the dark matter formed at the universe‘s birth to the nuclear futures.” A master nonfiction writer of landscapes, Macfarlane turns his eye below: to the meltwater shafts of glaciers, the underground rivers rushing meters below, the catacombs undergirding Paris, the deep “tombs” trusted with burying nuclear waste for eons to come. For anyone entranced by the deep.

Everything is fairly terrible right now, but this book is AMAZING.

💚📚💚📚💚📚💚📚💚📚💚📚💚📚💚📚💚

Really didn‘t want this book to end. So beautiful, and thoughtful, and staying. Not only do I now need to read all of Robert Macfarlane‘s other books immediately, I also need to apply to Cambridge University and take all his classes

It is, according to the hashtags, #BookLoversDay (I know, for us, that‘s all the days 😍) and so it seems fitting that yesterday I found this book—that I had somehow never heard of—while browsing in an actual, physical bookstore. And it is, so far, absolutely marvelous. Happy Book Lovers‘ Day to us! 📚💙

This extraordinary book records the author's exploration of the underground world, from the catacombs beneath Paris to a remote cave in Greenland. This is no light romp, but instead the journey and observations of a thoughtful, skilled explorer who conveys his love and awe of nature poetically and often tinged with sadness at humanity's impact on the world. I couldn't stop talking about this book as I read. The claustrophobic may want to skip it.

This travelogue/memoir delves into all the hidden, deep places in the earth: caves, underground rivers, mines, catacombs. Macfarlane is a serious writer and never lets you forget it, but I forgave the occasionally precious style because the journey is so interesting: Myth, science, philosophy...but most importantly, the guy actually descended into these places. You‘ll want to read about what he found down there. I‘m glad writers like this exist.

I am not a great lover of non fiction but McFarlane tells stories about real places he visits and people he meets along the way. A personal perspective for the most part but detailing historical fact as well as legend. This book was loaned to me by a fellow traveller whilst I travelled the Norwegian Fjords. If you are an explorer at heart then Macfarlane's beautiful story telling is for you.

I love the range of topics Rob Macfarlane covers, the interdisciplinary mix from the history and subcultures of the Paris catacombs to the science of dark matter or fungi. His enthusiasm for subjects and the people he spends time with shine through.

But I did struggle with the experimental (maybe) nature of it all - his experiences of the places he visits are a key part of the book. For me, at times this took the spotlight off the fascinating

Well, surprise, surprise - I enjoyed it. There were some very dry, academic ‘me‘ bits. But the sections discussing the history of landscapes, people‘s role now and then in the environment were fascinating.
Also- I had my daughter as a reading guide, she‘s doing a physical geography degree and she filled in many gaps for me, including the importance of the Anthropocene Working Group 😁 it‘s a big deal!

This was fascinating in some places but very dry in others. My main gripe was with the author; I found him to be rather full of his own self-importance and he made a lot of the book about himself. He was also a bit too ‘edgy‘ for me, doing borderline or downright illegal/dangerous things. My favourite sections were when he met up with others and we learned about their lives rather than the ‘me, me, me‘ parts.

Thanks for the #buddyread friends!

#audiowalk today. I‘m alternating between finding this absolutely utterly fascinating and a teensy tiny bit annoying. Also quite liking being outside in daylight, not underground. And wondering how I‘ve *still* never visited my local catacombs or Victorian underground passages.

1. Wear green, drink whiskey, eat potatoes.
2. Tagged book is interesting but so looong.
#two4tuesday

Informative, reflective, sad. 4.75 🌟 @ShyBookOwl @rachaich #3wordreviews

Looking forward to our #buddyread discussion @julesG @squirrelbrain @TrishB @scripturient @Leniverse @rockpools @Oryx @Caroline2 @jhod @youneverarrived @eraderneely

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

#booked2021 #summer #includesphotos @Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft @BarbaraTheBibliophage

#bookreport 6/3/21 @Cinfhen
🐁 Mansfield Park
🐁 Underland

#weeklyforecast
🍓 Finish Underland and The Fatal Tree
🍓 Continue Mansfield Park and Neurotribes

#bookhaul After a bit of a rubbish day, lovely to come home to a book delivery!

And nearly all ‘free‘ books too, as the top 3 were purchased with a voucher. Death in the Air and Detransition, Baby are definite #blameitonlitsy purchases. Insatiable has been reviewed in the UK press recently and sounds great, if a little risqué. ?

I‘m also quite pleased with the harmonious colour scheme, even though I didn‘t deliberately plan it! ?

Sometimes life feels like the hurried pace of an errand one isn‘t too interested in doing anyway; but in Underland, Macfarlane invites us to step onto nature‘s path, slow down, breathe, and look around. The writing is beautiful and heartfelt. He takes us through catacombs, tombs, mines, tunnels, through time, memory, mythology, and spirit, through explorations of subcultures, trips with friends, meetings with characters. I really enjoyed it.

Book Flood & Christmas Treasure 🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄⭐️❤️

What's the last book you picked up for the cover? I want to live inside this one. 😍😍😍

The way this book sinks into Deep Time is an adventure in and of itself. Burying myself in this book is the clearest I have ever been able to see the timescale and moments of the earth. In a political climate marked by such hysteria of our immanent future, this Dive into Deep Time is both a call to meaningful action and an anti anxiety medicine.

Trying something totally different here

This subject matter is in my wheelhouse but the book fell a little short. Each foray into the underworld was a bit same-y. I was hoping for a wider view. I do appreciate the huge undertaking this book took to research, I‘m just a little more curious.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-we-re-drawn-into-darkness?utm_source=pock...

I love this man‘s way with the world.
MacFarlane delves into the feels to reveal our human interactions with landscape in a way that feels peaceful yet disturbing, like a mirage in the distance that indicates a tremor is coming.

#mondaymood #nature #naturalhistory #underground #anthropocene #beforeitstoolate

I was intrigued after seeing this on various Best lists for 2019. It‘s a strong book with much fascinating detail about underground landscapes. I love Macfarlane‘s curiosity & enthusiasm to share his knowledge, hard-earnt through intrepid cave-crawling & time in Paris‘ catacombs among other places. He has an artist‘s sensibility. Not for the claustrophobic. I didn‘t relish all the geology & caving so it wasn‘t really for me but others will enjoy.

“Sometimes in the darkness you can see more clearly.”

This is my first book by this author. His sentences, imagery, and thoughtfulness are stealing my heart.

Tender

...to understand light you need first to have been buried in the deep-down dark.

#dentistofficereading

#currentlyreading #nonfiction

This has the most gorgeous writing for a nonfiction book 😍

There is so much that we have yet to learn about that which lies beneath. This takes us on a journey from a fungi symbiosis with the forests in England and urban exploration beneath Paris, to sunken rivers in Italy and war relics of man-made wormholes in Slovenia, to the ancient sea cave paintings in Norway and melt way sinkholes left in the retreating glaciers of Greenland. Underland is the story of us; of our planet and of our impact on it.

I was spellbound by this journey into what lies in the dark: in caves, mines, underground water & petroleum resources, hollow spaces quarried out under cities & made into catacombs, the depths of glaciers. Macfarlane goes to dangerous places that I only want to experience vicariously and he writes about it all so exquisitely. “A charm of goldfinches flitters away, the birds‘ high song glittering around us.” Nature writing at its finest.

Everywhere are the emerald leaves of the tiny dwarf willow. We have pitched our tent on top of a forest, I realize. We are canopy dwellers.

When Chauvet Cave was found in 1994, “it contained the greatest gallery of prehistoric art ever discovered.” “Some paint palettes used to make the work more than 30,000 years previously were still on the cave floor, abandoned beneath the paintings they had helped create. The tapers used to light the chamber had been dropped where they were held, their black ash spilling across the limestone.”

Macfarlane writes about a drilling rig that punctured a natural gas cavern & crashed through the desert floor in 1971. The poisonous gas fumes were ignited then & are still burning today. I had read about this earlier in Atlas Obscura because it‘s become a tourist attraction.

In Oregon […] there exists a honey fungus, Armillaria solidipes, that is 2 1/2 miles in extent at its widest point & covers a total lateral area of 4 sq miles. The blue whale is to this honey fungus as an ant is to us. The best guess that the US Forest Service scientists have been able to offer for the honey fungus‘s age is between 1,900 & 8,650 years old.

Fungi & lichen annihilate our categories of gender. They reshape our ideas of community & cooperation. They screw up our hereditary model of evolutionary descent. They utterly liquidate our notions of time. Lichens can crumble rocks into dust with terrifying acids. Fungi can exude massively powerful enzymes outside their bodies that dissolve soil. They‘re the biggest organisms in the world & among the oldest. They‘re world-makers & world-breakers.

Cosmic ray muons are noise. If you wish to listen for sounds so faint they may not exist at all, you can‘t have someone playing the drums in your ear. To hear the breath of the birth of the universe, you must come below ground to what are, experimentally speaking, among the quietest places in the universe.

The Knud Rasmussen glacier is a body of ice so great that it makes its own weather. The glacier is invisible the afternoon we arrive, concealed by a bank of fog that runs the full span of the fjord, a mile or so wide but only a few hundred yards high. Above the fog is blue sky, below it is blue water, and behind it is blue ice.
(Internet photo)

The description in the tagged book of David Nash‘s living art installation “Ash Dome” sent me down an Internet rabbit hole. Photo source: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/05/ash-dome-david-dash/

The Anthropocene compels us to think forwards in deep time, and to weigh what we will leave behind, as the landscapes we are making now will sink into strata, becoming underlands. What is the history of things to come? What will be our future fossils? […] The Anthropocene asks of us the question memorably posed by the immunologist Jonas Salk: ‘Are we being good ancestors?‘

We find speaking of the Anthropocene difficult. It is, perhaps, best imagined as an epoch of loss—of species, places and people—for which we are seeking a language of grief and, even harder to find, a language of hope.

(Internet image: https://anthropocenejournal.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/fossils-from-the-anthropoce...

Neil brakes the van to a halt in a swirl of dust, jumps out, cracks a fat flake of potash off the tunnel wall and hands it to me. It is pink as meat and flecked with silver mica. It is surprisingly light, almost buoyant in the hand.
‘Lick it,‘ says Neil. It fizzes on my tongue. It tastes of metal and blood. I want to eat it all.

(Internet photo)

From the 1800s the quarry voids were put to a new use as mushroom fields: damp and dark, they provided the perfect growing spaces for fungi, which sprouted from rows of horse manure. Adaptable quarrymen made a career move into mushroom farming, and a subterranean Horticultural Society of Paris was founded, its first president being a former inspector of the mines.

We are part mineral beings too—our teeth are reefs, our bones are stones—and there is a geology of the body as well as of the land. It is mineralization—the ability to convert calcium into bone—that allows us to walk upright, to be vertebrate, to fashion the skulls that shield our brains.