The Snow Geese

£7.99

SHORTLISTED for the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Award

William Fiennes’ “The Snow Geese” is the profoundly moving account of both a physical and spiritual migration following snow geese in their spring journey from the South to the Arctic - a joy returning of one man’s rediscovering the world.

Snow geese spend their summers in the Canadian Arctic, on the tundra. Each autumn they migrate south, to Delaware, California and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the spring they fly north again. One year, William Fiennes decided to go with them and to write about his travels. The result is an extraordinary journey, a mesmerizing story about the joys of being alive, of being on the move and - above all - of returning home.

A blend of autobiography and reportage, Fiennes’ subject was in fact also homecoming: the birds on their long journeys home, the grace of homecomings, the strange gravity that home exerts. The arc of Fiennes' extraordinary physical adventure formed the backbone for meditations on philosophy, natural science and personal memoir.

The book thrums with ideas, with stories and anecdotes, with humankind as well as wild fowl, with the funny and observant insights of an assured and highly entertaining writer.

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'With this beautiful, haunting debut Fiennes joins that small, very special band of writer-explorers - Emerson and Thoreau, Annie Dilard and Bruce Chatwin - who give us another pair of eyes: he has renewed the variety and wonder of the world' - Marina Warner

‘Fiennes is a very fine writer and this book is pure delight' - Peter Carey, winner of the Booker Prize 2001

‘I’m not fond of birds. So I wouldn’t usually choose to read about a birdwatcher’s obsessive quest. But The Snow Geese is much more than a “bird” book. Fiennes’ journey across North America in pursuit of the migration of unimaginable numbers of geese is beautifully written. His fascinating digressions on the migratory impulses and instincts of birds and the arc of his travels in the wake of the snow geese becomes a metaphor for his own migration from his childhood home and serious illness to a new maturity and independence. A wonderful first book.’ - Douglas Schatz, Managing Director, Stanfords