Sue says about Islands of Abandonment: "A book about abandoned places around the world and how quickly nature reclaims them after humanity has left. By turns depressing, terrifying, shocking and eventually optimistic, it’s an interesting and thought-provoking read." "THE SUNDAY TIMES’ BESTSELLER AND SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT CONSERVATION AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE This is a book about abandoned places: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands – and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place. In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods. This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world – and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery. By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone? Author: Flyn, Cal Scotland Published on 23 December 2021 by HarperCollins Publishers (William Collins) in the United Kingdom.Paperback / softback | 384 pages130 x 197 x 35 | 362g