Linda Cracknell
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Linda Cracknell is a writer of narrative non-fiction on the natural world, as well as of fiction and radio scripts. Her first story collection was nominated for a Saltire Award (now Scotlandβs National Book Awards) and the Robin Jenkins Award for environmental writing, and her essay collection Doubling Back: Ten Paths Trodden in Memory, about journeys she took on foot in Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, and Kenya, was serialised for BBC Radio as a Book of the Week. All of Lindaβs writing is inspired first and foremost by place, and she teaches creative writing, especially nature and place writing.
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Past andΒ present converge asΒ Linda CracknellΒ doubles back to follow in the footsteps of others.
Across Norway, Kenya, the Isle of Skye and Lindisfarne,Β DoublingΒ BackΒ traces the contours of history. Following paths long mythologised byΒ writers and relatives gone before, Linda Cracknell charts how placesΒ immortalised in writing and memory create portals; wrinkles in time andΒ geography that allow us to walk in the footsteps of others.
Join Linda as she traverses the dangerous crevasses of the SwissΒ alps to retrace the mountaineering past of the father she barely knew, follows the escape route ofΒ aΒ Norwegian scientist on the run in the second world war,Β or simplyΒ celebrates the joy found in the βfriendly pathsβ of her local, regular terrain, and the ritual of returning home.
Originally published in 2014 to rave reviews and serialised on BBC radio, this revised edition includesΒ an account of a new journey through northern Scotlandβs Flow Country,Β the peatlandΒ that is our chief Carbon store. As the century is almost one quarterΒ through, Linda doubles back once more to reflect on our futureΒ on this fragile Earth.
