Islands of Abandonment
Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape
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Narrated by:
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Cal Flyn
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By:
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Cal Flyn
About this listen
A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence
"[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence." (The New Yorker)
Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere else on earth in the Korean peninsula's narrow DMZ.
Cal Flyn, an investigative journalist, exceptional nature writer, and promising new literary voice visits the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth that due to war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, have been abandoned by humans. What she finds every time is an "island" of teeming new life: nature has rushed in to fill the void faster and more thoroughly than even the most hopeful projections of scientists.
Islands of Abandonment is a tour through these new ecosystems, in all their glory, as sites of unexpected environmental significance, where the natural world has reasserted its wild power and promise. And while it doesn't let us off the hook for addressing environmental degradation and climate change, it is a case that hope is far from lost, and it is ultimately a story of redemption: the most polluted spots on Earth can be rehabilitated through ecological processes and, in fact, they already are.
©2021 Cal Flyn (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Finalist for the Wainwright Prize
A Vulture "Book of the Summer"
One of Washington Post's Best Travel Books of 2021
“[A] riveting collection of essays.... Through lush and poetic language, [Flyn] captures the vital forces at work in the natural world. This is nature writing at its most potent.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
“Bracing, eye-opening, comprehensive, and essential, Islands of Abandonment is an energizing and important work. It affirms that nature is resilient, given half a chance, and should motivate all of us to try harder, even for the habitats that seem broken or hopeless.” (Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times best-selling author of Annihilation and the Southern Reach trilogy)
"Filled with understanding and adventure, Islands of Abandonment is written with a beautiful attention to detail and a generous and imaginative frame of mind. The wonderful and surprising thing is how much reassurance and sense of possibility comes out of it at every turn. In that way, it is the most precious hymn to resilience." (Adam Nicolson, author of Sea Room)
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Believers
- Making a Life at the End of the World
- By: Lisa Wells
- Narrated by: Lisa Wells
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Like many of us, Lisa Wells has spent years overwhelmed by news of apocalyptic-scale climate change and a coming sixth extinction. She did not need to be convinced of the stakes. But what can be done? Wells embarked on a pilgrimage, seeking answers in dedicated communities - outcasts and visionaries - on the margins of society.
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I believe
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-21
By: Lisa Wells
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The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
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A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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House of Rain
- Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest
- By: Craig Childs
- Narrated by: Craig Childs
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head-on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day", a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace.
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Poetic Travel Log
- By Staci Adleman on 01-09-19
By: Craig Childs
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The End of Ice
- Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption
- By: Dahr Jamail
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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After nearly a decade overseas as a war reporter, the acclaimed journalist Dahr Jamail returned to America to renew his passion for mountaineering, only to find that the slopes he had once climbed have been irrevocably changed by climate disruption. In response, Jamail embarks on a journey to the geographical front lines of this crisis - from Alaska to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, via the Amazon rainforest - in order to discover the consequences to nature and to humans of the loss of ice.
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Dealing with the Ultimate Climate Change Question
- By red_dog on 02-03-19
By: Dahr Jamail
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A Crack in the Edge of the World
- America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
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Visit Sunny Chernobyl
- And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places
- By: Andrew Blackwell
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.
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Better than I predicted
- By Paul Luthi on 08-23-13
By: Andrew Blackwell
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18 Miles
- The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather
- By: Christopher Dewdney
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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We live at the bottom of an ocean of air - 5,200 million million tons, to be exact. It sounds like a lot, but Earth’s atmosphere is smeared onto its surface in an alarmingly thin layer - 99 percent contained within 18 miles. Yet, within this fragile margin lies a magnificent realm - at once gorgeous, terrifying, capricious, and elusive. With his keen eye for identifying and uniting seemingly unrelated events, Chris Dewdney reveals to us the invisible rivers in the sky that affect how our weather works and the structure of clouds and storms and seasons, the rollercoaster of climate.
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10% science, 90% other stuff
- By Daniel W. Fox, Jr. on 10-09-20
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The Hour of Land
- A Personal Topography of America's National Parks
- By: Terry Tempest Williams
- Narrated by: Terry Williams
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them.
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It could have been good.
- By udzuzu on 04-14-18
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The Gulf
- The Making of an American Sea
- By: Jack E. Davis
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea - bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience - and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the 21st century.
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Decolonize gulf history
- By Jesse Carr on 05-02-18
By: Jack E. Davis
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Atlas of a Lost World
- By: Craig Childs
- Narrated by: Craig Childs
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of Apocalyptic Planet, an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People in North America 20,000 years ago and the artifacts that enable us to imagine their lives and fates. This book upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were.
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Blaaaa
- By Josh NJ on 07-26-18
By: Craig Childs
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The Great Warming
- Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
- By: Brian Fagan
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of the Great Warming of a half millennium ago suggests that we may yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives todayand our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the silent elephant in the room.
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Good book but unpracticed, disjointed narration.
- By Paul on 09-12-10
By: Brian Fagan
What listeners say about Islands of Abandonment
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jimmyjoejangles
- 03-15-22
Stunningly Breathtaking!
If there is a thing as ruin porn, this is ruin love letters! Thanks so much! Just finished and going straight back for another round and bought a hard copy! Really well written can't wait for more from this author!
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- Gwyn
- 03-02-22
Amazing Review of destruction finding some hope
I hope Miss Flyn's other writings are as descriptive. I cannot go to these places, yet feel as though I have. At times, I wanted to weep for the scars we cause, but yet revel in the amazing resilience of this beautiful planet that hosts us. Thank you, Miss Flyn, I will definitely be looking into your other works.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Cynthia S.
- 02-27-23
Amazing
One of the best books I have read. So descriptive…close your eyes and you are transported to each site. I have been fortunate enough to have visited many of these locations. Outstanding work.
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- Robert G Ives Jr
- 05-13-24
Personal Up Close Research
The author conducted her own personal and up close research in some remote and dangerous locations around the world. She documented flora and fauna regeneration in a variety of unlikely locations that are damaged because of war, natural destruction or just plain human disregard for the planet. I listened to the audiobook and she does an excellent reading both enlightening and enjoyable.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-19-21
Beautifully Written Story
Flynn is knowledgeable about her subjects. She is well educated and travels deeply further researching what she writes about. The writing is lyrical as well as factual. I learned a lot from listening to this book. I may listen to it again someday. I found mispronunciations of Greek names distracting. It’s not that difficult to get the accent correct in Greek names! Overall though, it was a really good journey of science, poetry and art.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 10-27-23
Thought provoking
A serious review of the resilience of life and a thought provoking discussion of both natural and human caused destructive events and their magnitudes of disruption to life on earth.
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- Mattia
- 09-02-21
Stunningly necessary
Flyn writes with such descriptive and poetic prose. Each place visited and explored comes alive, as though raised from the dead of obscurity.
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4 people found this helpful
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- MCV
- 04-28-22
pretentious
I honestly had to quit halfway through. I couldn't stand the narrator's voice any longer. the overly flowery language and her condescending tone makes it hard not to dismisse such an important subject. I will continue the book, but with the kindle version. it will be easier to look past the needlessly dramatic prose and take in the information.
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3 people found this helpful