Description

Winner of the Hawthornden Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize

I had attached myself to the birds. I couldn’t move on until the birds moved on, and the birds couldn’t move on without the spring.

One winter, after an enforced period of recuperation, William Fiennes finds himself restless and yearning for adventure. He travels to Texas, where he begins a quest to trace the million-strong flocks of snow geese making their spring flight thousands of miles north to the Arctic tundra. On his epic journey he meets people from every walk of life, from ex-nuns to train fanatics, and their stories resound with the longing to arrive at the right place in the world.

The Snow Geese is a poignant and lyrical paean to the richness and wonder of the world around us. A unique blend of autobiography, travel and nature writing, this is a classic tale of belonging and the inescapable lure of home.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

Publisher Review

Why are we drawn to birds, to landscape, to nature? It is for the sense of wonder – and in capturing that sense of wonder, Fiennes reminds us how desperately we all need it * Sunday Telegraph * The Snow Geese moved me as have few other recent books. No one who reads it is likely to continue to look at the world in the same way * Times Literary Supplement * A beautifully solitary and beautifully reflective book * Evening Standard * The descriptions of the geese and their environment are jaw-droppingly beautiful. But Fiennes’ most remarkable talent is for describing the quotidian with such freshness that it is like seeing the world for the first time * Mail on Sunday * An inspired work of natural history and travel. A classic * Irish Independent * His sharp eye and his inventive similes take us everywhere with him . . . an unmistakably gifted writer * The Times *