In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd (1893-1981) describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others.

Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. 

Drafted in 1945 and published in 1977, and widely regarded as one of the finest books ever written on nature and the landscape in Britain, it makes the familiar strange and the strange awe-inspiring.

The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain - Guardian

Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different - Robert Macfarlane

If you read it, you too will feel changed. This is sublime, in the 18th-century sense, when landscapes like these were terrifying. And she achieves it in language that is almost incantatory, like a spell - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian