{"title":"Neil Ansell","description":"\u003cp\u003eDiscover the contemplative nature writing of Neil Ansell. Journey through remote landscapes and explore profound connections between people and the natural world. Perfect for readers seeking solace and reflection.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"circling-sky-book-neil-ansell-9781472272379","title":"The Circling Sky","description":"From a 2018 Wainwright Prize shortlisted author, THE CIRCLING SKY is part childhood memoir, blended with exquisite nature observation, and the story of one man's journey over a year to one of the UK's key natural habitats, the New Forest of Hampshire    In the form of several journeys, beginning in January 2019, Neil Ansell returns for solitary walks to the New Forest in Hampshire, close to where he was born. With beautiful sightings and observations of birds, trees, butterflies, insects and landscape, this is also a reflective memoir on childhood, on the history of one of the most ancient and important natural habitats in the United Kingdom, and on the Gypsies who lived there for centuries - and were subsequently expelled to neighbouring cities. It is also part polemic on our collective and individual responsibility for the land and world in which we live, and how we care for it.    'Neil Ansell is a wonderful guide... this is a delight of nature writing' Choice Magazine","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49504134988049,"sku":"GOR012607448","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742402486545,"sku":"NGR9781472272379","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50532375003409,"sku":"GOR013988175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52819309789457,"sku":"CIN1472272374VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472272374.jpg?v=1770288762"},{"product_id":"deep-country-book-neil-ansell-9780141049328","title":"Deep Country","description":"Deep Country is Neil Ansell's account of five years spent alone in a hillside cottage in Wales.  'I lived alone in this cottage for five years, summer and winter, with no transport, no phone. This is the story of those five years, where I lived and how I lived. It is the story of what it means to live in a place so remote that you may not see another soul for weeks on end. And it is the story of the hidden places that I came to call my own, and the wild creatures that became my society.'  Neil Ansell immerses himself in the rugged British landscape, exploring nature's unspoilt wilderness and man's relationship with it. Deep Country is a celebration of rural life and the perfect read for fans of Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks, Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk orJames Rebanks' A Shepherd's Life.  'A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales'  Jay Griffiths  'Touching. Through Ansell's charming and thoroughly detailed stories of run-ins with red kites, curlews, sparrowhawks, jays and ravens, we see him lose himself . . . in the rhythms and rituals of life in the British wilderness'  Financial Times  'Remarkable, fascinating'  Time Out  'A gem of a book, an extraordinary tale. Ansell's rich prose will transport you to a real life Narnian world that CS Lewis would have envied. Find your deepest, most-comfortable armchair and get away from it all'  Countryfile  Neil Ansell spent five years living on a remote hillside in Wales, and wrote his first book, Deep Country, about the experience. Since that time, he has become an award-winning television journalist with the BBC. He has travelled in over fifty countries and has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman and the Big Issue.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49509885804817,"sku":"GOR003916213","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49561121325329,"sku":"GOR007928982","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49597845274897,"sku":"GOR004498021","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49728023986449,"sku":"NGR9780141049328","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49927454753041,"sku":"CIN0141049324G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49947010171153,"sku":"CIN0141049324A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51716714922257,"sku":"GOR008041851","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53103694643473,"sku":"CIN0141049324VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0141049324.jpg?v=1767092566"},{"product_id":"last-wilderness-book-neil-ansell-9781472247124","title":"The Last Wilderness","description":"Neil Ansell's THE LAST WILDERNESS is a mesmerising book on nature and solitude by a writer who has spent his lifetime taking solitary ventures into the wild. For any readers of  the author's previous book, DEEP COUNTRY, Robert Macfarlane's THE OLD WAYS or William Atkins THE MOOR.  Shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize Shortlisted for the 2018 Highland Book Prize   'Ansell has the rare skill of combining vividly the intimacy of detail and the astonishing grandeur of this North West coastline of Scotland. Through his keen eyes we look again at the familiar with a sense of wondrous revelation' Madeleine Bunting   'Beautiful...a testimony to reticent courage' Daily Mail   The experience of being in nature alone is here set within the context of a series of walks that Neil Ansell takes into the most remote parts of Britain, the rough bounds in the Scottish Highlands. He illustrates the impact of being alone as part of nature, rather than outside it.  As a counterpoint, Neil Ansell also writes of the changes in the landscape, and how his hearing loss affects his relationship with nature as the calls of the birds he knows so well become silent to him.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49513471246609,"sku":"GOR009621962","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49636657430801,"sku":"GOR009312619","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49733485592849,"sku":"NGR9781472247124","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50098044928273,"sku":"CIN1472247124A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50195633766673,"sku":"GOR010382577","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50278645432593,"sku":"GOR011568011","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50383892447505,"sku":"CIN1472247124G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472247124.jpg?v=1772100303"},{"product_id":"last-wilderness-book-neil-ansell-9781472247117","title":"The Last Wilderness","description":"Neil Ansell's THE LAST WILDERNESS is a mesmerising book on nature and solitude by a writer who has spent his lifetime taking solitary ventures into the wild. For any readers of  the author's previous book, DEEP COUNTRY, Robert Macfarlane's THE OLD WAYS or William Atkins THE MOOR.  'A gem of a book, an extraordinary tale. Ansell's rich prose will transport you to a real life Narnian world that C.S.Lewis would have envied. Find your deepest, most comfortable armchair and get away from it all' Countryfile   The experience of being in nature alone is here set within the context of a series of walks that Neil Ansell takes into the most remote parts of Britain, the rough bounds in the Scottish Highlands. He illustrates the impact of being alone as part of nature, rather than outside it.  As a counterpoint, Neil Ansell also writes of the changes in the landscape, and how his hearing loss affects his relationship with nature as the calls of the birds he knows so well become silent to him.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514228121873,"sku":"GOR008967481","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49663902810385,"sku":"GOR012316684","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49724178530577,"sku":"GOR008794499","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51903878005009,"sku":"GOR011608338","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472247116.jpg?v=1751305825"},{"product_id":"deer-island-book-neil-ansell-9781908213136","title":"Deer Island","description":"At the beginning of the 1980s Neil Ansell chose a life of voluntary poverty working for the Simon Community, a charity with radical approaches to helping homeless people. He lived in squats and 'derries' across London, becoming part of a floating community of volunteers and rough sleepers whose purpose was to offer companionship and support for each other. But around them Britain was changing. It was becoming the decade of the individual. Soon there would be 'no such thing' as society. More and more young people started arriving in the Community, set adrift by unemployment, and the city streets and squats were becoming awash with heroin. Immersed in this fragile world, Neil's sense of self began to disintegrate against the hard truths of homelessness. Worst of all were the people he lost, the friends who died or disappeared. To escape he started taking occasional trips to the Isle of Jura, off the west coast of Scotland, to seek solace and isolation in the landscape. Along the way he hoped to find his way back to himself. In spare and beautiful prose Neil Ansell overlaps two contrasting journeys through the streets of London and the wilds of Jura, building a powerful and moving meditation on what it means to belong. What makes us feel attached to a place or a community? What do we mean when we call a place home? Are memories the only things we can ever truly own?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49554956878097,"sku":"GOR005504280","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51149450314001,"sku":"GOR007520708","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1908213132.jpg?v=1751061405"},{"product_id":"deep-country-book-neil-ansell-9780241145005","title":"Deep Country","description":"Neil Ansell spent five years living between the back of beyond and the middle of nowhere, on his own, with no electricity, gas or water and effectively only the wildlife around him for company.  His dilapidated cottage, rented for £100 per year, is so exposed to the elements that it appears to rain uphill, and so remote that you can walk for twenty miles west without seeing a single other dwelling. As the years pass he feels himself dissolving into, and becoming, just another part of the landscape.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49559471849745,"sku":"GOR003421755","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49685151547665,"sku":"GOR002655149","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241145007.jpg?v=1751258796"},{"product_id":"circling-sky-book-neil-ansell-9781472272362","title":"The Circling Sky","description":"From a 2018 Wainwright Prize shortlisted author, THE CIRCLING SKY is part childhood memoir, blended with exquisite nature observation, and the story of one man's journey over a year to one of the UK's key natural habitats, the New Forest of Hampshire  In the form of several journeys, beginning in January 2019, Neil Ansell returns for solitary walks to the New Forest in Hampshire, close to where he was born. With beautiful sightings and observations of birds, trees, butterflies, insects and landscape, this is also a reflective memoir on childhood, on the history of one of the most ancient and important natural habitats in the United Kingdom, and on the Gypsies who lived there for centuries - and were subsequently expelled to neighbouring cities. It is also part polemic on our collective and individual responsibility for the land and world in which we live, and how we care for it.  As Neil Ansell concludes so eloquently, 'Evolution has no choice in what it does, but we do, as a species, if not always as individuals'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49582338212113,"sku":"GOR011524626","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50278421856529,"sku":"GOR011308484","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50526003036433,"sku":"GOR013985527","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50964474167569,"sku":"GOR012065790","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472272366.jpg?v=1751053587"},{"product_id":"deer-island-book-neil-ansell-9781915068330","title":"Deer Island","description":"At the beginning of the 1980s Neil Ansell lived in a series of squats and derelict buildings across London. Becoming part of a floating community of rough sleepers and volunteers, who found purpose in providing companionship and support for one another. But Britain was changing - this was the decade of the individual and soon we would be told that 'there was no such thing as society.' Out of his experiences Ansell has woven a beautifully told tale, interleaving the streets of the capital with journeys through the wilds of Jura (a Norse word for deer island), building a powerful and moving meditation on belonging. This is the first paperback edition of the highly praised memoir.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49748613267729,"sku":"NGR9781915068330","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50554707247377,"sku":"GOR013688683","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50629151195409,"sku":"GOR014017592","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1915068339.jpg?v=1750932946"},{"product_id":"edge-of-silence-book-neil-ansell-9781780279565","title":"The Edge of Silence","description":"The Edge of Silence isa profoundly moving and poignant book that explores the authors hearing loss as he journeys in search of endangered British native species. Neil's journey takes him to the mountaintops and islands of the Scottish Highlands to the marshes of England and the hills of Wales.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51605446754577,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51605447475473,"sku":"NGR9781780279565","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51972798447889,"sku":"GOR014471933","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52865246429457,"sku":"GOR014648255","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53617411096849,"sku":"NIN9781780279565","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1780279566.jpg?v=1769681397"},{"product_id":"edge-of-silence-book-neil-ansell-9781780279848","title":"The Edge of Silence","description":"A journey like no other. Acclaimed nature writer Neil Ansell has suffered from progressive hearing loss his whole life. As his world is becoming ever more silent, he suddenly hears something quite unexpected – the haunting call of the great northern diver. It is this extraordinary experience which makes him realise that there might still be remarkable sounds in nature within his reach – if he can only find himself in the right place at the right time.    This moving book charts Neil’s mission to hear rare and elusive creatures that he had not previously encountered. This journey takes him from the mountaintops and islands of the Scottish Highlands to the marshes of England and the hills of Wales. Many of these species are in grave danger of extinction, so the future Neil faces, devoid of their distinctive calls, is one we all must fight to prevent.         LOCATIONS AND ANIMALS:     Great northern diver (Nether Lochaber, Scottish Highlands), Ptarmigan (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Little Grebe (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Bittern (Morecambe Bay, Lancashire), Natterjack toad (The Wirral), Red-throated diver (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Corncrake (Coll), Snipe (Coll), Black grouse (North Wales), Greenshank (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Puffin (Canna and Sanday), Storm petrel (Mousa, Shetland), Whimbrel (Shetland), Red kite (Perthshire), Otter (Sunart, Scottish Highlands), Manx shearwater (Rum)    Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2025","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53131741888785,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53131741954321,"sku":"NGR9781780279848","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781780279848.jpg?v=1771273418"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-neil-ansell.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}