The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd [Hardcover]

Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain LiteratureElemental, fierce and full of wonder, the Cairngorm mountains are the high and rocky heart of Scotland. To know them would take forever, to love them demands a kind of courageous surrender.In The Hidden Fires, Merryn Glover undertakes that challenge with Nan Shepherd as companion and guiding light. Following in the footsteps and contours of The Living Mountain, she explores the same landscapes and themes as Shepherds seminal work. This is a journey separated by time but unified by space and purpose, a conversation between two women across nearly a century that explores how entering the life of a mountain can illuminate our own.An Australian who grew up in the Himalayas, her early experiences of the Scottish hills and weather left her cold. But gradually acclimatising and with an approach like Shepherds, that is more mountain wandering than mountaineering, she discovers the spark that sets the hills and herself on fire. Through Glovers deepening encounter, the wild majesty and iridescence of the Cairngorms is revealed in this beautiful evocation of landscape, place and identity.Shortlisted for The Great Outdoors Reader Awards 2024'Merryn Glovers The Hidden Fires is not just brave, it is remarkable'  Sir John Lister-KayeThe Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd is a response to Nan Shepherds The Living Mountain. Drawing from the author's upbringing in the Himalayas and gradual adaptation to Scotlands hills, Merryn Glover contrasts her own Cairngorm experiences with Shepherds. A dazzling adventure into mountain, place and time. Redolent with the presence of Nan Shepherd, this book will captivate lovers of The Living Mountain. The Hidden Fires is a book about homecoming and homemaking, of noticing and belonging. It is a joyous celebration of the process of finding yourself. Only rarely does one read a book whose quality of distinction is immediately apparent from the first page; MelÓb