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Common Ground: Encounters with Nature at the Edges of Life
All too often, we think of nature as something distinct from ourselves, something to go and see, a place that’s separate from the ordinary modern world in which we live and work. But if we take the time to look, we soon find that’s not how nature works. Even in our parceled-out, paved-over urban environs, nature is all around us; it is in us. It is us.
That’s what Rob Cowen discovered after moving to a new home in northern England. After ten years in London he was suddenly adrift, searching for a sense of connection. He found himself drawn to a square-mile patch of waste ground at the edge of town. Scrappy, weed-filled, this heart-shaped tangle of land was the very definition of overlooked—a thoroughly in-between place that capitalism no longer had any use for, leaving nature to take its course. Wandering its meadows, woods, hedges, and fields, Cowen found it was also a magical, mysterious place, haunted and haunting, abandoned but wildly alive—and he fell in fascinated love.
Common Ground is a true account of that place and Cowen’s transformative journey through its layers and lives, but it’s much more too. As the land’s stories intertwine with events in his own life—and he learns he is to become a father for the first time—the divisions between human and nature begin to blur and shift. The place turns out to be a mirror, revealing what we are, what we’re not and how those two things are ultimately inseparable.
This is a book about discovering a new world, a forgotten world on the fringes of our daily lives, and the richness that comes from uncovering the stories and lives—animal and human—contained within. It is an unforgettable piece of nature writing, part of a brilliant tradition that stretches from Gilbert White to Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald.
“I am dreaming of the edge-land again,” Cowen writes. Read Common Ground , and you, too, will be dreaming of the spaces in between, and what—including us—thrives there.
That’s what Rob Cowen discovered after moving to a new home in northern England. After ten years in London he was suddenly adrift, searching for a sense of connection. He found himself drawn to a square-mile patch of waste ground at the edge of town. Scrappy, weed-filled, this heart-shaped tangle of land was the very definition of overlooked—a thoroughly in-between place that capitalism no longer had any use for, leaving nature to take its course. Wandering its meadows, woods, hedges, and fields, Cowen found it was also a magical, mysterious place, haunted and haunting, abandoned but wildly alive—and he fell in fascinated love.
Common Ground is a true account of that place and Cowen’s transformative journey through its layers and lives, but it’s much more too. As the land’s stories intertwine with events in his own life—and he learns he is to become a father for the first time—the divisions between human and nature begin to blur and shift. The place turns out to be a mirror, revealing what we are, what we’re not and how those two things are ultimately inseparable.
This is a book about discovering a new world, a forgotten world on the fringes of our daily lives, and the richness that comes from uncovering the stories and lives—animal and human—contained within. It is an unforgettable piece of nature writing, part of a brilliant tradition that stretches from Gilbert White to Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald.
“I am dreaming of the edge-land again,” Cowen writes. Read Common Ground , and you, too, will be dreaming of the spaces in between, and what—including us—thrives there.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
May 3, 2016
Life has a habit of throwing curve balls at you. Cowen has relocated to Yorkshire, has just been made redundant and is confined by the weather to home. Longing for fresh air, sky and space, but not sure of the lie of the land, he ventures out to find somewhere.
And on the fringe of a housing estate, he finds it. It is a forgotten area, frequented only by dog walkers and people who hurry through; a piece of land that isn’t wilderness, but feels wild and untamed, unloved and uncared for. Pylons pierce the sky, surrounding this edgeland, reminding you that precious little of the land in the UK is untouched by human hands.
And it is in this place that he begins to feel free and to breathe again. Visiting frequently, almost obsessively, he begins to peel back the layers that form this place. With almost forensic level of detail of all he observes, from tracking a fox, the brevity of the mayfly life, the hunt from the perspective of the quarry and the silent, lethal owl.
Intertwined thought the books too is an honest account of his anxieties and thoughts on the modern world. He learns to that he is to become a father, and they process of creating a new life is deftly woven into the narrative as his partner grows with his child.
'I am dreaming of the edge-land again'
This is nature writing of the highest quality, on a par with some of the finest out there. It is imaginative, immersive, detailed and at certain points haunting. Cowen’s attention to detail is astonishing too, not just seeing, but making deep observations of all he sees, captivating to read. The inclusion of his personal life, gives further depth to the book, but the more novel creations, portraying a hare as someone in a coffee shop for example, really didn’t do anything for me, and jarred with the rest. But other than that, this was excellent.
And on the fringe of a housing estate, he finds it. It is a forgotten area, frequented only by dog walkers and people who hurry through; a piece of land that isn’t wilderness, but feels wild and untamed, unloved and uncared for. Pylons pierce the sky, surrounding this edgeland, reminding you that precious little of the land in the UK is untouched by human hands.
And it is in this place that he begins to feel free and to breathe again. Visiting frequently, almost obsessively, he begins to peel back the layers that form this place. With almost forensic level of detail of all he observes, from tracking a fox, the brevity of the mayfly life, the hunt from the perspective of the quarry and the silent, lethal owl.
Intertwined thought the books too is an honest account of his anxieties and thoughts on the modern world. He learns to that he is to become a father, and they process of creating a new life is deftly woven into the narrative as his partner grows with his child.
'I am dreaming of the edge-land again'
This is nature writing of the highest quality, on a par with some of the finest out there. It is imaginative, immersive, detailed and at certain points haunting. Cowen’s attention to detail is astonishing too, not just seeing, but making deep observations of all he sees, captivating to read. The inclusion of his personal life, gives further depth to the book, but the more novel creations, portraying a hare as someone in a coffee shop for example, really didn’t do anything for me, and jarred with the rest. But other than that, this was excellent.
June 21, 2015
4.5
There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment for books which combine some landscape and nature writing along with social history and personal memoir.
I'd read some good reviews of this book and knew it was an in depth study of a piece of ground on the northern edge of a town.What I didn't realise until I opened the book and saw the map, was that the town was Harrogate and the 'edge lands' described were what I opened my bedroom curtains and looked out on for many years before moving into the countryside proper.
I have to admit that until I read Cowen's book I'd not considered it any more than a pleasant area full of wildlife, with an active Conservation Group (which our family belonged to) - somewhere good for my son to kick his football or my daughter fly her kite or play 'dens'. Cowen sees it all very, very differently.
During a turbulent and unsettled time of his life he comes to rely on the 'edge lands' as somewhere that pulls him like a magnet in all weathers and at all times of day and night. The place soothes him and disturbs him in equal measure. It comes close to obsessing him. It sparks his imagination in a way that he almost becomes some of the people and creatures he observes.
In less capable hands this could become pretty dire, but Cowen is a marvellous writer. Lying half dozing in a field he almost inhabits the body of a deer being chased, or a fox prowling around the houses (maybe my old house!!). These are some of the best passages of the book with some truly inspiring writing that reminded me several times of The Once and Future King.
Very good indeed and recommended.
There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment for books which combine some landscape and nature writing along with social history and personal memoir.
I'd read some good reviews of this book and knew it was an in depth study of a piece of ground on the northern edge of a town.What I didn't realise until I opened the book and saw the map, was that the town was Harrogate and the 'edge lands' described were what I opened my bedroom curtains and looked out on for many years before moving into the countryside proper.
I have to admit that until I read Cowen's book I'd not considered it any more than a pleasant area full of wildlife, with an active Conservation Group (which our family belonged to) - somewhere good for my son to kick his football or my daughter fly her kite or play 'dens'. Cowen sees it all very, very differently.
During a turbulent and unsettled time of his life he comes to rely on the 'edge lands' as somewhere that pulls him like a magnet in all weathers and at all times of day and night. The place soothes him and disturbs him in equal measure. It comes close to obsessing him. It sparks his imagination in a way that he almost becomes some of the people and creatures he observes.
In less capable hands this could become pretty dire, but Cowen is a marvellous writer. Lying half dozing in a field he almost inhabits the body of a deer being chased, or a fox prowling around the houses (maybe my old house!!). These are some of the best passages of the book with some truly inspiring writing that reminded me several times of The Once and Future King.
Very good indeed and recommended.
February 26, 2015
It takes a special kind of writer to make magic from the everyday. In this book, Rob Cowen has done precisely that. In choosing to investigate the kind of ordinary place that most people pass by without a second thought, he has created something extraordinary; a sentimental journey into the Northern dreamtime, in which the plants and animals of the British countryside are revealed in intimate detail, and in starkly beautiful prose. The cover is a nod to WATERSHIP DOWN; and although this book is very different, I think it achieves the same effect; to give us a new perspective on familiar places; to make us think again about what we think we know of our world, to help us understand the links that bind us to our landscape, and, like Blake, to make us see Heaven in a wild flower.
June 14, 2021
An unassuming patch of edge-land outside Harrogate is Cowen’s nature paradise, providing him with wildlife encounters and imaginative scenarios. Structured as it is around months in which he found out he was going to be a father and welcomed his son, the book has a very personal bent. Essentially, what Cowen does is give profiles of the edge-land’s inhabitants: animal and human, himself included. For instance, he creates an account of the life and death of a fox; elsewhere, he crafts a first-person narrative by a deer being hunted in medieval times. These fictions emulating Watership Down or Tarka the Otter, though well written, are out of place. When the book avoids melodramatic anthropomorphizing, it is very beautiful indeed. The chapters have strong thematic links and draw on legends as well as scientific facts to reveal how remarkable common species truly are.
June 9, 2020
A powerful and moving piece of writing which is both a minutely detailed observation of the natural world and our relationship in it and also a wondrous and ecstatic flight of imagination. Beautiful, lyrical, rapturous and enchanting are some of the words I would use to describe this book, which had the effect of making me hold my breath for fear of disturbing the wonders on the page. But, it is also haunting, somber, mournful and heart-breaking and will leave you looking at the world in a whole new way and considering our, at times quite frankly appalling, actions in the wider world. I have loved every single page of this book and I whole-heartedly recommend it without reservation.
November 30, 2017
I sit up too fast. my head explodes into every pile of dogshit anyone has ever trod on this path. Italics: FOX. That musty piss musk. Emily's bored but im really in tune with nature so i just go with it and keep talking. Have i mentioned how 'wow' it is out here? other people are sitting inside, placated in front of their tvs, their boring little lives. i'm not like them, i notice things and then describe them, calling hawthorn flowers 'dolloped cream', although that speaks nothing of the qualities of blossom.
Also this fucking awful man's depiction of two women's friendship in the mayfly chapter? ''laURa's FiT buT heR frieNd is isNT, i Know....
LAuRa doesnt Care coS she's Fit and Is All I n tune With Nature WoohHo. She keeps saying 'dad said you only live once' or something to spell out the strained connection to the mayfly and its lifespan/mating habits, as obvious and as patronising as possible. Also the first account/attempt at a vignette of a working class character(s) and it's as insects...? The descriptions of Laura and her friends /dialogue couldn't of been more unconvincing, to the point of insult really. and it made it really hard to ignore where the writer was writing from or how his view of what Laura's life might be like was so poorly-drawn and pitying. It was so bad i put the book down and took some deep breaths.
The vignettes were already bad - like, really - so bad - but this one killed it for me.
Really wanted to like the book! and started off v invested in it! but couldn't get past all this, ugh.
Also this fucking awful man's depiction of two women's friendship in the mayfly chapter? ''laURa's FiT buT heR frieNd is isNT, i Know....
LAuRa doesnt Care coS she's Fit and Is All I n tune With Nature WoohHo. She keeps saying 'dad said you only live once' or something to spell out the strained connection to the mayfly and its lifespan/mating habits, as obvious and as patronising as possible. Also the first account/attempt at a vignette of a working class character(s) and it's as insects...? The descriptions of Laura and her friends /dialogue couldn't of been more unconvincing, to the point of insult really. and it made it really hard to ignore where the writer was writing from or how his view of what Laura's life might be like was so poorly-drawn and pitying. It was so bad i put the book down and took some deep breaths.
The vignettes were already bad - like, really - so bad - but this one killed it for me.
Really wanted to like the book! and started off v invested in it! but couldn't get past all this, ugh.
January 4, 2017
a natural history of a small bit of edge land bordering bilton uk. lyrical, full of history of area and its development, lots about the few animals there, a little about the few plants there. and incorporates he and his wife having a baby and how that relates to humans and the natural, and how it doesnt also.
a great example of creative natural history writing .
a great example of creative natural history writing .
January 15, 2018
I share Common Ground with Rob Cowen. I lived, as he does now, in Bilton, Harrogate for getting on for 10 years. The edge lands of the Bilton Triangle were my back yard, as they are his. And so this is why I read his book. At first I found it a tricky read - a little overwritten, I thought. Gradually however, this book of nature writing, of memoir, of local history won me over. I loved how he brought themes together under separate chapters which were each primarily about some different inhabitant of the edge land: a fox, a badger, a mayfly and so on. Where he became anthropomorphic, as in his description of a mediaeval stag hunt, I lost some patience, finding such passages simply self-indulgent. I was uncomfortable with his attributing feelings, mannerisms to people not long dead, such as Bilton Conservation Group member Bill Varley, and - not that it perhaps mattered - I wasn't always sure which of his tales were fact, which fiction.
The Bilton Triangle is in the news again, as once more politicians try to make the case for running a major a ringroad through this precious wild are so near to Harrogate. They should read this book.
The Bilton Triangle is in the news again, as once more politicians try to make the case for running a major a ringroad through this precious wild are so near to Harrogate. They should read this book.
May 30, 2016
This is an astounding book. 'In an era where there seems seem to be a deficit of wonder' this book makes up for much. In loving the unlovable - an edge-land, accidentally missing development into city the first time round - Cowen turns the book into a human-nature interface. It is remarkable in its marrying of fiction, nature, history, autobiography, but is mostly memorable for the sheer exhilaration it offers. He actually finds words for that moment of discovery / experience. And added bonus - he writes about my favorite animals: hares, roe-deer, swift and badgers. It is a beautifully crafted book, combining theme-like stories about people and animals with a chronological story about his own life. And in the end - in a way I will not share for fear of spoling - Cowen finds the ultimate common ground between man and animal. Truly a remarkable book, highly recommended.
August 10, 2015
This is a gorgeous book - and I'm not just talking about the cover. Rob Cowen takes a small patch of land on the edge of town and visits it repeatedly over the course of the year until he knows it intimately.
He describes it through the seasons, not just from his perspective but also from that of its inhabitants, past and present, human and creature. Alongside these imaginings are details from his own life at a time of huge transition - a move to a new town and impending fatherhood.
So all at once it is natural history, memoir and fictitious flights of fancy - all combining to make a gem of a book amongst the slew of fantastic nature writing we've been spoilt with recently.
He describes it through the seasons, not just from his perspective but also from that of its inhabitants, past and present, human and creature. Alongside these imaginings are details from his own life at a time of huge transition - a move to a new town and impending fatherhood.
So all at once it is natural history, memoir and fictitious flights of fancy - all combining to make a gem of a book amongst the slew of fantastic nature writing we've been spoilt with recently.
July 1, 2016
Beautiful writing, and I admired the way he found beauty in ordinary patches of land, but I'm afraid I didn't find anything new or noteworthy in this book. It is very similar to many other books published recently (eg H is For Hawk, The Fish Ladder, The Outrun) but doesn't have a unique thread that makes books like H is for Hawk stand out. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading books for the nature alone, but I need something extra to grab my attention.
February 1, 2017
I took the this book out of the library on 19th November and failed and to get beyond page 2. I've picked it up again today and I am in the same position. Maybe I am too literal. I know this area of Bilton well, it was my local patch for 25 years, much longer than Cowen.
Ok, it does say the map is not to scale and it most certainly isn't. But come on, Cowen leaves his house at 5pm on New Years Eve i.e. 31st January in North Yorkshire, crosses a ring road (that doesn't exist but presumably he means the A59) and walks right down Bilton Lane - a good mile or more - and supposedly sees the sun disappear. The sun disappears a good two hours earlier than that at the end of December in North Yorkshire. He spied the relics of a siding there in the dark. I don't think so! Yes we are still on page 2 and there are 317 pages to wade through. It may not be so annoying if it was put forward as a work of fiction but there are pages of acknowledgements, notes and selected bibliography making it appear as if it is an accurate academic work. Strangely though there was no reference to the local naturalist who has been writing about this area in a weekly column for the Harrogate Advertiser.
I will try to read further as I'm told the work demonstrates good use of language. I'm not hopeful though.
Ok, it does say the map is not to scale and it most certainly isn't. But come on, Cowen leaves his house at 5pm on New Years Eve i.e. 31st January in North Yorkshire, crosses a ring road (that doesn't exist but presumably he means the A59) and walks right down Bilton Lane - a good mile or more - and supposedly sees the sun disappear. The sun disappears a good two hours earlier than that at the end of December in North Yorkshire. He spied the relics of a siding there in the dark. I don't think so! Yes we are still on page 2 and there are 317 pages to wade through. It may not be so annoying if it was put forward as a work of fiction but there are pages of acknowledgements, notes and selected bibliography making it appear as if it is an accurate academic work. Strangely though there was no reference to the local naturalist who has been writing about this area in a weekly column for the Harrogate Advertiser.
I will try to read further as I'm told the work demonstrates good use of language. I'm not hopeful though.
May 13, 2023
Rob Cowen is a great writer, and that’s not something you come across very often. At times I was completely absorbed into the trees with him, and there are several passages of brilliance, I’m thinking of the soldier, the deer and the fox for example, so good that I’m surprised he’s not more well-known. When I got this book I didn’t realise that I’d recently walked the paths in the edgeland, and my dad worked there 50 years ago. There are echoes and footsteps everywhere here, Rob knows because he captured them with words.
June 6, 2017
I really want to love this book. The cover is beautiful and the promise exquisite. I can see by the other reviews that I am in the minority. I think wandering in urban fringe nature is just not for me.
January 19, 2018
3.5. Found some parts of this more engaging than others - probably me being misanthropic, but the 'human' bits sometimes didn't click. Worth sticking with, because the good bits are really good.
Read
April 20, 2025I got bored with the overwritten description of tree branches. Too much detail. Maybe it just wasn't what I needed to read just now. Read about 40 pages.
June 13, 2023
Probably better read in hardcopy than audio. Very interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the non-fiction parts. My knowledge of swifts I owe entirely to Rob Cowen, what amazing birds.
November 5, 2023
well, I gave it three stars but I wouldn't really say I liked it. I'm glad I read it, I learned a lot about swifts, I had a realization that just as colonizers stole land away from the indigenous residents of the americas, in a colonizing country rather than a colonized one, britain, the elite stole land away from the poor (the enclosure of the commons). I got a better idea of the state of environmentalism in britain.
this sounded perfect for me. a paean to edgelands, basically as-yet undeveloped land. discussions of british wildlife. an appreciation for nearby nature that is usually shunned. but I didn't really enjoy it, as much as I found some of it valuable. I didn't really like the author. he was really sort of male forwards, I felt like he encountered things very much as a man. there was quite a bit of immersion in hunting and war, there was never an acknowledgement that as a woman walking around at all hours on unlit deserted ground would have been impossible. there was one part where he said that the physical and psychological changes in a woman going through pregnancy have been well documented, but not so much for her male partner. uh, ok. way to make it about you. and actually there are a million mysteries that come along with pregnancy that haven't been well-documented at all. I admired his tolerance for discomfort and he was fairly forthcoming with describing his own fear but I don't think I would want to hang out with this guy - and in reading the book I'm effectively doing that.
there are bits of the book I just didn't get that he didn't really explain. there is this conceit that he sort of touches the land and has visions of people who have gone before him. he talks a lot about a local guy who goes to war - but where does that very detailed information come from, down to him nailing a nail into a tree with his fiancee before he goes as some sort of promise of coming back? same with a vignette about some 70s teenagers having sex in the edgelands. I understand the value of talking about war and its relationship to landscape, home, etc. I understand the value of talking about coming of age and sex as a primal force and its relationship to landscape and place. but did he just make these stories up? did a local in the pub say, oh, yeah, the land by the river, last time I was down there was when I was having it off with my high school girlfriend? I just found those bits jarring.
I wasn't keen on his eagerness to describe violent deaths of animals, particularly at human hands. really one of my least favorite topics in the world. he really puts you through it in that sense. a deer jumped over him in the woods and he looked in his eye and that just causes this long reverie of what it would be like to be hunted to death by a pack of dogs. I mean, yes, this is the reality of a LOT of human interaction with animals but it made it so I was never going to love this book.
so yeah, it was depressing. depressing in what had happened in the past, depressing in what the future holds. I think the part I liked best besides just learning about swifts and realizing that even if you ARE indigenous to your country, the rich will fuck you over - I mean, I knew all the facts before, I just hadn't made the connection between the british elite yanking land away from the british commoners and then going and doing it again in other countries but because of racism - was when he described how the edgelands had been totally despoiled, just a dumping ground, at one point, but a group of environmentalists in the town cleaned it up. and this he had receipts for, he'd researched it, he talked about their notes and newsletters. so when he doesn't sort of mystically blur the sources for the stories he's telling, I prefer it. I am not distracted by wondering how does he know this, how much of this is true, did he find a nail and make up a story, did he just pick a man who died in the war and make up a story.
so, a lot of value in reading this, but depressing as hell really.
this sounded perfect for me. a paean to edgelands, basically as-yet undeveloped land. discussions of british wildlife. an appreciation for nearby nature that is usually shunned. but I didn't really enjoy it, as much as I found some of it valuable. I didn't really like the author. he was really sort of male forwards, I felt like he encountered things very much as a man. there was quite a bit of immersion in hunting and war, there was never an acknowledgement that as a woman walking around at all hours on unlit deserted ground would have been impossible. there was one part where he said that the physical and psychological changes in a woman going through pregnancy have been well documented, but not so much for her male partner. uh, ok. way to make it about you. and actually there are a million mysteries that come along with pregnancy that haven't been well-documented at all. I admired his tolerance for discomfort and he was fairly forthcoming with describing his own fear but I don't think I would want to hang out with this guy - and in reading the book I'm effectively doing that.
there are bits of the book I just didn't get that he didn't really explain. there is this conceit that he sort of touches the land and has visions of people who have gone before him. he talks a lot about a local guy who goes to war - but where does that very detailed information come from, down to him nailing a nail into a tree with his fiancee before he goes as some sort of promise of coming back? same with a vignette about some 70s teenagers having sex in the edgelands. I understand the value of talking about war and its relationship to landscape, home, etc. I understand the value of talking about coming of age and sex as a primal force and its relationship to landscape and place. but did he just make these stories up? did a local in the pub say, oh, yeah, the land by the river, last time I was down there was when I was having it off with my high school girlfriend? I just found those bits jarring.
I wasn't keen on his eagerness to describe violent deaths of animals, particularly at human hands. really one of my least favorite topics in the world. he really puts you through it in that sense. a deer jumped over him in the woods and he looked in his eye and that just causes this long reverie of what it would be like to be hunted to death by a pack of dogs. I mean, yes, this is the reality of a LOT of human interaction with animals but it made it so I was never going to love this book.
so yeah, it was depressing. depressing in what had happened in the past, depressing in what the future holds. I think the part I liked best besides just learning about swifts and realizing that even if you ARE indigenous to your country, the rich will fuck you over - I mean, I knew all the facts before, I just hadn't made the connection between the british elite yanking land away from the british commoners and then going and doing it again in other countries but because of racism - was when he described how the edgelands had been totally despoiled, just a dumping ground, at one point, but a group of environmentalists in the town cleaned it up. and this he had receipts for, he'd researched it, he talked about their notes and newsletters. so when he doesn't sort of mystically blur the sources for the stories he's telling, I prefer it. I am not distracted by wondering how does he know this, how much of this is true, did he find a nail and make up a story, did he just pick a man who died in the war and make up a story.
so, a lot of value in reading this, but depressing as hell really.
June 19, 2017
A gift of a book. Poetic, knowledgeable, searching, warm hearted, far-ranging. It has re-awakened a curiosity about landscape and tiny habitats that has slept since University field work, over three decades ago. It has joined dots about enclosures, economy, social history and local ecology. A good read, and one that has provoked considerable reflection.
January 3, 2016
I suspect we have Helen Macdonald, author of "H is for Hawk" to thank in part for this book's publication - she showed that the recipe of nature writing combined with deeply personal autobiography by non-celebrities can work. It can work very well indeed.
Much of what flowed out from "Common Ground" was entirely unexpected. Cowen doesn't just describe his sensory experiences in the edge-land and the reflections they lead to in himself. He takes the reader on journeys into animal minds, and human ones too, often weaving together reality and speculation, almost teasing with small details that might or might not indicate the line between nonfiction and fiction in his narrative. Not that the book is written vaguely - far, far from it. Cowen writes about species with an intimate knowledge, from the rising of the mayflies to the migrations of swifts to the red admiral caterpillar weaving shelters out of nettle leaves.
While the people (or characters?) we encounter are all rich in their own ways, for me it was the animals' stories that thrilled the most. The hunting of the roebuck is one of most tense, compelling passages I have ever read. Cowen's writing is superb, in these moments and throughout. I was torn between devouring the book and savouring it.
Cowen rounds off "Common Ground" with a hard landing. He acknowledges the elephant in the room, that this edge-land he loves so much, and that readers like myself feel connected to now, is unlikely to survive for much longer. There are simply too many of us and we need houses. He doesn't stop there. He writes forcefully of politicians and governments wilfully ignoring the science of climate change, and bovine TB - there's a fair bit about badger culling, in fact. Though I've been following that political football for a while, I still learned new things from Cowen.
An unmissable feat of nature-writing.
Much of what flowed out from "Common Ground" was entirely unexpected. Cowen doesn't just describe his sensory experiences in the edge-land and the reflections they lead to in himself. He takes the reader on journeys into animal minds, and human ones too, often weaving together reality and speculation, almost teasing with small details that might or might not indicate the line between nonfiction and fiction in his narrative. Not that the book is written vaguely - far, far from it. Cowen writes about species with an intimate knowledge, from the rising of the mayflies to the migrations of swifts to the red admiral caterpillar weaving shelters out of nettle leaves.
While the people (or characters?) we encounter are all rich in their own ways, for me it was the animals' stories that thrilled the most. The hunting of the roebuck is one of most tense, compelling passages I have ever read. Cowen's writing is superb, in these moments and throughout. I was torn between devouring the book and savouring it.
Cowen rounds off "Common Ground" with a hard landing. He acknowledges the elephant in the room, that this edge-land he loves so much, and that readers like myself feel connected to now, is unlikely to survive for much longer. There are simply too many of us and we need houses. He doesn't stop there. He writes forcefully of politicians and governments wilfully ignoring the science of climate change, and bovine TB - there's a fair bit about badger culling, in fact. Though I've been following that political football for a while, I still learned new things from Cowen.
An unmissable feat of nature-writing.
March 31, 2016
I'm usually sceptical about nature writing, but as soon as I heard about this I knew I needed it in my life. The fact it's written about a local town doesn't matter, even if you didn't know Harrogate or Bilton existed you'd still fall for this beautiful piece of writing.
Rob has a way with words; he shows you the lay of the land, he's guiding your journey through it rather than shoving your face into a picture of it. The feeling you get from this book hits you in the heart. There's emotion and passion laid bare on the page, detailing our visceral connection we still have with nature even if you don't get a chance to sit in a hedge watching mad March hares.
This is so much more than a nature book. So much more than local writing, or a sprt-of biography.
This is a masterpiece. The feeling of freedom on your own patch of common ground is in this book. That ownership, the urge to touch and smell and feel the natural world. It's all here. Celebrating what so many of us think we've lost, or are losing. Edge lands are still there, and our connection to nature is still there; Rob proves that in one fell swoop.
By far one of the best books I've read.
Rob has a way with words; he shows you the lay of the land, he's guiding your journey through it rather than shoving your face into a picture of it. The feeling you get from this book hits you in the heart. There's emotion and passion laid bare on the page, detailing our visceral connection we still have with nature even if you don't get a chance to sit in a hedge watching mad March hares.
This is so much more than a nature book. So much more than local writing, or a sprt-of biography.
This is a masterpiece. The feeling of freedom on your own patch of common ground is in this book. That ownership, the urge to touch and smell and feel the natural world. It's all here. Celebrating what so many of us think we've lost, or are losing. Edge lands are still there, and our connection to nature is still there; Rob proves that in one fell swoop.
By far one of the best books I've read.
June 25, 2019
I veered from being amazed by this book one minute to losing interest and having my mind wander dangerously far from the "edge land" the next.
I think the nature side of the book really worked and was engaging, fascinating, at times disheartening and equally uplifting.
The sections I struggled with were the human aspects (as mentioned in other reviews here). I struggled with Cowen making up stories about who might have mooched about in the edge land (the young girl with her mates, the war hero, the tramp). I felt a bit of a "so what" attitude! I was interested in the wildlife and nature, I didn't want to hear about fictional randomites! Those issues aside, the writing is good, if not at times overly descriptive (a little bit of thesaurus swallowing going on!!)
To make magic out of mundanity is difficult but Cowen just about pulled it off. He could have left out most of the humans though!
I think the nature side of the book really worked and was engaging, fascinating, at times disheartening and equally uplifting.
The sections I struggled with were the human aspects (as mentioned in other reviews here). I struggled with Cowen making up stories about who might have mooched about in the edge land (the young girl with her mates, the war hero, the tramp). I felt a bit of a "so what" attitude! I was interested in the wildlife and nature, I didn't want to hear about fictional randomites! Those issues aside, the writing is good, if not at times overly descriptive (a little bit of thesaurus swallowing going on!!)
To make magic out of mundanity is difficult but Cowen just about pulled it off. He could have left out most of the humans though!
April 3, 2018
The basic premise of the book, and the excellent cover got me to purchase this book. Sadly it proved to be a disappointing read, to put it mildly. The writing is self-conscious and gives the impression of being guided rather too closely by a recently attended course on Creative Writing...cars growling in the distance and shit like that. The exhilaration of being alone in a wild patch of the woods never takes hold. And the generally left-leaning lecture against private property and its development cannot hide this simple fact. His personal predicament left him flat, uninspired and his interaction with nature could not lift him out of it. He may alledge the opposite, but the quality of the prose betrays this sad truth.
June 5, 2015
Everyone should read this book. It should be on school book lists; a condition of serving as an MP; required reading for town planners, farmers, cyclists, runners, Joe Public.....everyone. Taking photographs every day over recent years has made me more aware of small, important things in my world as well as big pictures but this book took me deeper into the world of our 'edgelands'. It will put you back in touch with those things that matter and you don't need to have a degree in botany or be a professional naturalist to make a difference. I'm getting out there and looking forward to learning now I know how I am going to use that lovely notebook my friend gave me for my birthday!
August 30, 2025
This book really resonated with me, brilliant, thoroughly enjoyed.
September 30, 2021
Rob Cowen weaves non-fiction in with fiction like a bramble bush left to its own devices. No, I hate that I said that, 'it's own devices' isn't that another way of keeping 'humans' in the bubble of being 'other?' No I mean, a bramble left without the touch of too many human hands and tools.
'Everything changes continuously, of course, nature is perpetual flux, but we are good at suppressing uncomfortable reminders of the greater cycles.'
Yea, and sometimes this is why I hold a visceral hatred that completely contradicts my main interests. I'm having one of those days today as a matter of fact, yet just yesterday and the day before I was sitting comfortable and reasonably happy with the thing we call 'nature' and therefore happy with my own existence and lack of existence into the future. And boy am I pissed that my brain dares change its state, yet I being nature too, this is just a natural change in whatever is going on inside my body hormones, less dopamine, whatever it is causing the 'meh I can't be bothered' mood of today. It's a season inside my own body, which is in sync with the weather of the day. My thoughts and moods a tangle of brambles I'm always crawling my way through.
I loved this quote when I first read it, today I'm grumpy, so I will go with what I thought when I first read this, 'Clocks are wound to the rhythms of modern anthropocentric existence: The nine to five grind, career trajectories, the working week..........pension plans, retirement.' and here is the best bit, 'It's how the adverts metronome our lives.' pg4 Yea. And how fake are those fucking adverts. Sometimes hearing and seeing adverts makes me feel nausea. It's a metronome in sync with our emptiness, trying to fulfil something that cant be fulfilled.
'Nature isn't just some remote mountain or protected park. It is all around us. It is in us. It is us.' pg 12
'Birds camp by feeders like refugees around cooking fires, hunched and hungry,' pg 33
At first I found this line comical because of the image it provoked in my head, and I enjoyed it. Then I thought about it some more and...' refugees' is an apt word. We've taken up so much space aren't they a bit like refugees?
Speaking of a predator vs prey scenario, he writes,
'The moment of the strike is lost in the dwarf wheat but I watch as he immediately bobs his head in a series of flinging violent blows. My heart is in my throat. Then after a minute, the owl looks around nonchalantly and rises, carrying off the crumpled grey ball of a baby rabbit. A life ended before it has begun; A stomach fed. All while the pheasant and the Robins continue with their idle chit-chatting. Nothing sees; nothing cares. The hunt, the death, all of it seems so shockingly routine.' pg 74.
And that is the ultimate thing we shield ourselves away from, the routine of death. It's the price of our 'humanness' too aware for our own good. Or maybe it's the other way around, maybe non-human animals know something we don't. Come to think of it, they do. They know exactly what is stated here, death is as routine as life is.
'The problem with 'nature': it is ambivalent to what makes humans tick. And yet it is what makes us tick. The two can be hard to reconcile sometimes' pg 78 Sometimes? I'd say all the time.
On pg 80 he talks about being in the waiting room of a hospital with his wife, noting the daily modern comforts contrasting with the world outside. And notes 'we forget, but this is nature too.'
Yes, even all our modern reassurances of comfort are nature too, the hands that made those things belonged to a type of ape, the thing we all are, humans. If the human hand makes a thing why do we not also call it natural? Now there is a tangled bush we could wrestle with all day!
This book serves as a reminder of our 'common ground' with the rest of the wildlife out there. We're not as different as we like to make out, but we are a damned force to reckoned with, and we need to acknowledge that and for our own sakes as well as the wildlife we need to remember our common ground with all those other parts of nature that aren't 'human centric' in fact it would be very anti human-centric to continue to deny our commonalities for we depend on all those others forms of life!
'Everything changes continuously, of course, nature is perpetual flux, but we are good at suppressing uncomfortable reminders of the greater cycles.'
Yea, and sometimes this is why I hold a visceral hatred that completely contradicts my main interests. I'm having one of those days today as a matter of fact, yet just yesterday and the day before I was sitting comfortable and reasonably happy with the thing we call 'nature' and therefore happy with my own existence and lack of existence into the future. And boy am I pissed that my brain dares change its state, yet I being nature too, this is just a natural change in whatever is going on inside my body hormones, less dopamine, whatever it is causing the 'meh I can't be bothered' mood of today. It's a season inside my own body, which is in sync with the weather of the day. My thoughts and moods a tangle of brambles I'm always crawling my way through.
I loved this quote when I first read it, today I'm grumpy, so I will go with what I thought when I first read this, 'Clocks are wound to the rhythms of modern anthropocentric existence: The nine to five grind, career trajectories, the working week..........pension plans, retirement.' and here is the best bit, 'It's how the adverts metronome our lives.' pg4 Yea. And how fake are those fucking adverts. Sometimes hearing and seeing adverts makes me feel nausea. It's a metronome in sync with our emptiness, trying to fulfil something that cant be fulfilled.
'Nature isn't just some remote mountain or protected park. It is all around us. It is in us. It is us.' pg 12
'Birds camp by feeders like refugees around cooking fires, hunched and hungry,' pg 33
At first I found this line comical because of the image it provoked in my head, and I enjoyed it. Then I thought about it some more and...' refugees' is an apt word. We've taken up so much space aren't they a bit like refugees?
Speaking of a predator vs prey scenario, he writes,
'The moment of the strike is lost in the dwarf wheat but I watch as he immediately bobs his head in a series of flinging violent blows. My heart is in my throat. Then after a minute, the owl looks around nonchalantly and rises, carrying off the crumpled grey ball of a baby rabbit. A life ended before it has begun; A stomach fed. All while the pheasant and the Robins continue with their idle chit-chatting. Nothing sees; nothing cares. The hunt, the death, all of it seems so shockingly routine.' pg 74.
And that is the ultimate thing we shield ourselves away from, the routine of death. It's the price of our 'humanness' too aware for our own good. Or maybe it's the other way around, maybe non-human animals know something we don't. Come to think of it, they do. They know exactly what is stated here, death is as routine as life is.
'The problem with 'nature': it is ambivalent to what makes humans tick. And yet it is what makes us tick. The two can be hard to reconcile sometimes' pg 78 Sometimes? I'd say all the time.
On pg 80 he talks about being in the waiting room of a hospital with his wife, noting the daily modern comforts contrasting with the world outside. And notes 'we forget, but this is nature too.'
Yes, even all our modern reassurances of comfort are nature too, the hands that made those things belonged to a type of ape, the thing we all are, humans. If the human hand makes a thing why do we not also call it natural? Now there is a tangled bush we could wrestle with all day!
This book serves as a reminder of our 'common ground' with the rest of the wildlife out there. We're not as different as we like to make out, but we are a damned force to reckoned with, and we need to acknowledge that and for our own sakes as well as the wildlife we need to remember our common ground with all those other parts of nature that aren't 'human centric' in fact it would be very anti human-centric to continue to deny our commonalities for we depend on all those others forms of life!
November 14, 2018
"Then, one morning, you step through the front door and it's that time - the turning time. The moment the season creaks on its hinges and, by chance, you overhear. The start of a slowly spoken countdown; the intake of a breath before summer's auctioneer yells, 'Going, going ... gone.'
If you like beautiful, yet accessible, writing about nature and our connection with it, look no further. You might disbelievingly say 'How can you find true nature in a patch of grassy ground with a small wood and a river on the outskirts of a town?' - well, that of course depends on your interpretation of 'true' nature, but, as Cowen also continuously ponders and argues, however modern and industrial and digital we have become, we are not really removed from nature. There is a reason nature can feel so restorative to a troubled mind; nature is where we come from and where we belong, and even in small doses it can enrich our lives.
This patch is also where Cowen seeks solace - he is troubled by a move and a lack of work and shortly thereafter he finds out he is going to be a father. This is not a bad thing, in fact he is very happy about it, but for most of us it still requires some change of perspective. He finds stability in the common ground, the edge-land that is half city, half nature. An in-between place that is still as wild as any wilderness. And, lucky for us, he manages to write very beautifully about it, too. About this gradual change of perspective, largely due to the influences of the nature he spends so much time in, about nature and change in general, about both hope and despair for the future and where we are headed, about adaptation, and about what nature really is and means to us and to the creatures we share it with.
The only reason I do not give this book 5 stars is Cowen's tendency to invent stories for animals and historical or fictional persons. Early in the book, he invents an entire timeline for the life of a fox, from when and where it was born, to when it met its mate and had kits, to the vixen leaving him and eventually getting hit by a train. Later, he invents stories for deer, rabbits, and butterflies, as well as for a young girl, then a whole memoir-like story about Thomas Watson, a young man who lived in the area and died in WWI. I don't know how much of the Watson-story or the story about the young girl is true (likely not much), but for obvious reasons the life stories of the animals are pure imagination. And I don't know exactly why, but that irked me. I read nature books for the hands-on facts and encounters and for the philosophy and the poetic experiences that often come with them, not for fictional accounts. In small doses, imagination is welcome, too (as a reader, you can hardly hate imagination), but in larger quantities, I personally believe they belong in fiction.
Fortunately, these parts did not take up much space overall and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy the combination of nature book and memoir!
/NK
If you like beautiful, yet accessible, writing about nature and our connection with it, look no further. You might disbelievingly say 'How can you find true nature in a patch of grassy ground with a small wood and a river on the outskirts of a town?' - well, that of course depends on your interpretation of 'true' nature, but, as Cowen also continuously ponders and argues, however modern and industrial and digital we have become, we are not really removed from nature. There is a reason nature can feel so restorative to a troubled mind; nature is where we come from and where we belong, and even in small doses it can enrich our lives.
This patch is also where Cowen seeks solace - he is troubled by a move and a lack of work and shortly thereafter he finds out he is going to be a father. This is not a bad thing, in fact he is very happy about it, but for most of us it still requires some change of perspective. He finds stability in the common ground, the edge-land that is half city, half nature. An in-between place that is still as wild as any wilderness. And, lucky for us, he manages to write very beautifully about it, too. About this gradual change of perspective, largely due to the influences of the nature he spends so much time in, about nature and change in general, about both hope and despair for the future and where we are headed, about adaptation, and about what nature really is and means to us and to the creatures we share it with.
The only reason I do not give this book 5 stars is Cowen's tendency to invent stories for animals and historical or fictional persons. Early in the book, he invents an entire timeline for the life of a fox, from when and where it was born, to when it met its mate and had kits, to the vixen leaving him and eventually getting hit by a train. Later, he invents stories for deer, rabbits, and butterflies, as well as for a young girl, then a whole memoir-like story about Thomas Watson, a young man who lived in the area and died in WWI. I don't know how much of the Watson-story or the story about the young girl is true (likely not much), but for obvious reasons the life stories of the animals are pure imagination. And I don't know exactly why, but that irked me. I read nature books for the hands-on facts and encounters and for the philosophy and the poetic experiences that often come with them, not for fictional accounts. In small doses, imagination is welcome, too (as a reader, you can hardly hate imagination), but in larger quantities, I personally believe they belong in fiction.
Fortunately, these parts did not take up much space overall and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy the combination of nature book and memoir!
/NK
September 29, 2019
I thought, or hoped, I would like this, but I didn't. Please bear in mind that my comments are an entirely subjective opinion.
I struggled to the end of Chapter 1 even though I found it increasingly difficult and kept looking at the 'mins left in chapter' at the bottom of my Kindle screen.
In ascending order of why I struggled:
a) I found the sentences, or the voice, tedious. Even though he's describing moving around a piece of land, I don't get any sense of anything happening. I can't even work out what mood the book is supposed t be - a description of a piece of land? Not very self-aware self-reflection?
b) Long lists of names of trees, shrubs, flowers, birds. Okay, fair enough, most readers of this genre of book would expect this, and understand what they mean, and be able to picture them in their mind's eye. That I can't is entirely my failing and ignorance. I'm aware of this failing, and reading books like this is how I have tried to address that gaping void in my knowledge. But maybe I need to reconcile myself to accepting that that knowledge will no longer be absorbed into my middle-aged brain, even though that brain is still plastic enough to learn about history (in its widest sense) but also about subjects outside my comfort zone eg Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life
c) The crunch point, and, again I emphasise for me was the description of the death of the fox. The author projected onto the fox an imaginary life, vixen, family, desperate hunger and death, when he couldn't possibly know.
I have a real problem with the anthropomorphisation of wild animals, the projection onto them of human like emotions and thought processes. I think it's mawkish and it exploits readers like me. I find many David Attenborough programmes difficult to watch for similar reasons. I also have to drop some human based fiction for the same reason eg I gave up the TV series of Les Miserables.
I think I am a very empathetic person, inasmuch as I find it easy to put myself into someone else's shoes. Please note that this isn't a comment on or boast about any moral virtue on my part. Any moral virtue comes from what I then do comfort the afflicted, and the measure of that is outside the scope of this review.
I felt angry at having my emotions manipulated like this and not being able to do anything to remedy the situation. As I struggled to the end of the chapter I resolved to suspend my reading of this. I turned to a very different non-fiction and decided to return to this particular work later.
However, having slept on it, I have decided to abandon it. No doubt, if I progressed into the book, I would find much to reward my efforts, but I also realised that three reasons are reason enough to spend any more of my precious reading time on this.
I struggled to the end of Chapter 1 even though I found it increasingly difficult and kept looking at the 'mins left in chapter' at the bottom of my Kindle screen.
In ascending order of why I struggled:
a) I found the sentences, or the voice, tedious. Even though he's describing moving around a piece of land, I don't get any sense of anything happening. I can't even work out what mood the book is supposed t be - a description of a piece of land? Not very self-aware self-reflection?
b) Long lists of names of trees, shrubs, flowers, birds. Okay, fair enough, most readers of this genre of book would expect this, and understand what they mean, and be able to picture them in their mind's eye. That I can't is entirely my failing and ignorance. I'm aware of this failing, and reading books like this is how I have tried to address that gaping void in my knowledge. But maybe I need to reconcile myself to accepting that that knowledge will no longer be absorbed into my middle-aged brain, even though that brain is still plastic enough to learn about history (in its widest sense) but also about subjects outside my comfort zone eg Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life
c) The crunch point, and, again I emphasise for me was the description of the death of the fox. The author projected onto the fox an imaginary life, vixen, family, desperate hunger and death, when he couldn't possibly know.
I have a real problem with the anthropomorphisation of wild animals, the projection onto them of human like emotions and thought processes. I think it's mawkish and it exploits readers like me. I find many David Attenborough programmes difficult to watch for similar reasons. I also have to drop some human based fiction for the same reason eg I gave up the TV series of Les Miserables.
I think I am a very empathetic person, inasmuch as I find it easy to put myself into someone else's shoes. Please note that this isn't a comment on or boast about any moral virtue on my part. Any moral virtue comes from what I then do comfort the afflicted, and the measure of that is outside the scope of this review.
I felt angry at having my emotions manipulated like this and not being able to do anything to remedy the situation. As I struggled to the end of the chapter I resolved to suspend my reading of this. I turned to a very different non-fiction and decided to return to this particular work later.
However, having slept on it, I have decided to abandon it. No doubt, if I progressed into the book, I would find much to reward my efforts, but I also realised that three reasons are reason enough to spend any more of my precious reading time on this.
Read
August 11, 2025Edge-lands are the lands between the city and the country, neglected, overgrown strips along highways, power lines, waterways. Author Rob Cowen moves to a town in Yorkshire, England. He goes out exploring, and discovers an edge-land within walking distance of his house. It is the grounds along a river, and along an abandoned railway.
He takes to hanging out there, wandering and observing. And to be honest, I found his descriptions a bit much. We are told every species of plant he sees, and every shade of color, and every quality of light. But then he began telling stories, and I was hooked.
He imagines the life of a dying fox. He imagines the life of a homeless guy who camps along the river. He tells the lives of hare, and deer, mayfly and swift, nettle and badger. He also tells about his own life. He roughly chronicles the changes of the land in a year, and it happens to be the year that his wife is pregnant and gives birth.
Along the way he muses about many things, including man’s relationship with nature in general, and the way enclosure in the history of England deprived people of their relationship with the commons that had once helped to support the life of the community.
I marked several pages as I read. Let me go back and see what spoke to me as I read.
Page 22. “Mostly we have no idea what surrounds us. We don’t care.” This is mostly true. The pocket forests and meadows in our neighborhoods can harbor wildlife while some people drive past not only knowing what lives in the forest, but not even noticing that there is a pocket forest there.
Page 235. “Every year we become more insular and inward focused.” “Our profound alienation from the earth continues. We’re the landless and listless, so estranged from our planet, so removed from each other and the life with share this world with that we’re seemingly unable to come together and prevent global and human catastrophe. We’re still being divided and conquered by enclosure, only now the fences are invisible and internal too.” I think everyone who loves nature has experience the frustration that the house is on fire and no one cares.
Page 136. “There are no landscapes in Britain, and few in the world, that aren’t managed by our hands in some way. Despite their differences, rural and urban are not opposing states; our prints are all over both, whether from keeping nature at bay or from nurturing it into being.” Yes, the Anthropocene.
Page 308. “When I first came to this spot I was seeking somewhere I might belong.” “And now I realise how the outside world can inform our inside world. The common ground and edge-lands that surround our homes may not provide our food and fuel any more, but once unlocked, they can still sustain us, revealing the complex intermeshing between humans and nature—showing us what we are, what we are not and how these two things are inseparable.”
He takes to hanging out there, wandering and observing. And to be honest, I found his descriptions a bit much. We are told every species of plant he sees, and every shade of color, and every quality of light. But then he began telling stories, and I was hooked.
He imagines the life of a dying fox. He imagines the life of a homeless guy who camps along the river. He tells the lives of hare, and deer, mayfly and swift, nettle and badger. He also tells about his own life. He roughly chronicles the changes of the land in a year, and it happens to be the year that his wife is pregnant and gives birth.
Along the way he muses about many things, including man’s relationship with nature in general, and the way enclosure in the history of England deprived people of their relationship with the commons that had once helped to support the life of the community.
I marked several pages as I read. Let me go back and see what spoke to me as I read.
Page 22. “Mostly we have no idea what surrounds us. We don’t care.” This is mostly true. The pocket forests and meadows in our neighborhoods can harbor wildlife while some people drive past not only knowing what lives in the forest, but not even noticing that there is a pocket forest there.
Page 235. “Every year we become more insular and inward focused.” “Our profound alienation from the earth continues. We’re the landless and listless, so estranged from our planet, so removed from each other and the life with share this world with that we’re seemingly unable to come together and prevent global and human catastrophe. We’re still being divided and conquered by enclosure, only now the fences are invisible and internal too.” I think everyone who loves nature has experience the frustration that the house is on fire and no one cares.
Page 136. “There are no landscapes in Britain, and few in the world, that aren’t managed by our hands in some way. Despite their differences, rural and urban are not opposing states; our prints are all over both, whether from keeping nature at bay or from nurturing it into being.” Yes, the Anthropocene.
Page 308. “When I first came to this spot I was seeking somewhere I might belong.” “And now I realise how the outside world can inform our inside world. The common ground and edge-lands that surround our homes may not provide our food and fuel any more, but once unlocked, they can still sustain us, revealing the complex intermeshing between humans and nature—showing us what we are, what we are not and how these two things are inseparable.”
May 22, 2023
Common Ground by Rob Cowen is a beautifully grounded yet highly explorative book that weaves various narratives together as seen through the eyes of the author and as he imagines from other perspectives that add layers of depth and interest to the story being told.
From the author's perspective we are given a bird's eye view of his daily exploration of a large patch of wasteland on the outskirts of Bilton in Yorkshire.
Drawn to this piece of wasteland or 'common ground' against the backdrop of everyday life as a young couple moving to a new town, Rob fell upon the opportunity to write about 'the wildness encountered in the more expected places' - this following many years exploration into the wilder aspects of national parks, moorlands, coasts and mountaintops.
Of the edge-lands he says: 'Even before I'd started the process of investigating it in any depth I was aware that this edge-land was a crossing point where countless histories lay buried. Enmeshed in every urban edge is also the continuous narrative of the subsistence of nature, pragmatic and prosaic, the million things that survive and even thrive at the fringes.'
Abandoned by the local council and avoided by residents until taken on as a conservation project towards the end of the book, this common land, encircled by an old viaduct, the meandering River Nidd, the Old Railway line and Bilton Lane, is cross-crossed with semi-hidden paths trodden only by the animals left free to roam there.
With exquisite and detailed descriptions of the landscape, flora and fauna of this patchy piece of land left to go wild, Rob takes you there with descriptive passages such as: 'The morning assumes a fragile blue hue, almost crackable, as transparent, triangular clouds freeze across the sky. Patterns appear on the surface too: the soft-focus haze of hedges blurring north and the corduroy shadows of tractor-combed earth.'
He refers to the edge-land as confessional, a place that draws you in to cultivate a deeper understanding of the land, its inhabitants and history. Rob's experiences on the edges led to the formation a close bond with Nature and those who lived there over the course a year through each of the seasons.
Throughout the book are references of a bygone age when 'once a time the edges were the places we knew best. They were common ground. Times were hard and spare but the margins around homesteads, villages and towns sustained us.'
There are many references to the impact of the modern world and the economic turmoil encroaching on us, dating back to the enclosure of our common lands and the story of land ownership through history. In this sense, we empathise with the author's need for open space and his laments over the unholy sterility of the mass-produced, the myth of unending growth and the increasingly urgent call for re-wilding.
There are several unexpected and heart-beating accounts of events imagined through the eyes of a roebuck deer being hunted by a farmer and his dog, and a fox being hunted to exhaustion by a blood hound which seem to jump through the pages and bring the book to life. Rob discusses the fine balance between living in harmony with the land and exploiting it with reference to the country-wide badger culls that devastate wildlife and provide little or no evidence of any benefit.
Other interlacing stories spoken from the perspective of a homeless man's plight living on the edges and a young man returning from war add depth and poignancy. The homeless man finds refuge in the forgotten land, and the soldier working through his shocking reaction to 'coming home' tries to steady himself in a hedgerow with wild nettles surrounding him.
Nature is everywhere and can be found in the most unexpected places. By showing interest and taking time to explore the edge-lands and forgotten places where Nature has been left to grow wild, we can discover more about ourselves and the life we live than we anticipated.
In this sense, we must strive to protect and persevere the places where Nature has found a home and where the natural world is free to thrive.
From the author's perspective we are given a bird's eye view of his daily exploration of a large patch of wasteland on the outskirts of Bilton in Yorkshire.
Drawn to this piece of wasteland or 'common ground' against the backdrop of everyday life as a young couple moving to a new town, Rob fell upon the opportunity to write about 'the wildness encountered in the more expected places' - this following many years exploration into the wilder aspects of national parks, moorlands, coasts and mountaintops.
Of the edge-lands he says: 'Even before I'd started the process of investigating it in any depth I was aware that this edge-land was a crossing point where countless histories lay buried. Enmeshed in every urban edge is also the continuous narrative of the subsistence of nature, pragmatic and prosaic, the million things that survive and even thrive at the fringes.'
Abandoned by the local council and avoided by residents until taken on as a conservation project towards the end of the book, this common land, encircled by an old viaduct, the meandering River Nidd, the Old Railway line and Bilton Lane, is cross-crossed with semi-hidden paths trodden only by the animals left free to roam there.
With exquisite and detailed descriptions of the landscape, flora and fauna of this patchy piece of land left to go wild, Rob takes you there with descriptive passages such as: 'The morning assumes a fragile blue hue, almost crackable, as transparent, triangular clouds freeze across the sky. Patterns appear on the surface too: the soft-focus haze of hedges blurring north and the corduroy shadows of tractor-combed earth.'
He refers to the edge-land as confessional, a place that draws you in to cultivate a deeper understanding of the land, its inhabitants and history. Rob's experiences on the edges led to the formation a close bond with Nature and those who lived there over the course a year through each of the seasons.
Throughout the book are references of a bygone age when 'once a time the edges were the places we knew best. They were common ground. Times were hard and spare but the margins around homesteads, villages and towns sustained us.'
There are many references to the impact of the modern world and the economic turmoil encroaching on us, dating back to the enclosure of our common lands and the story of land ownership through history. In this sense, we empathise with the author's need for open space and his laments over the unholy sterility of the mass-produced, the myth of unending growth and the increasingly urgent call for re-wilding.
There are several unexpected and heart-beating accounts of events imagined through the eyes of a roebuck deer being hunted by a farmer and his dog, and a fox being hunted to exhaustion by a blood hound which seem to jump through the pages and bring the book to life. Rob discusses the fine balance between living in harmony with the land and exploiting it with reference to the country-wide badger culls that devastate wildlife and provide little or no evidence of any benefit.
Other interlacing stories spoken from the perspective of a homeless man's plight living on the edges and a young man returning from war add depth and poignancy. The homeless man finds refuge in the forgotten land, and the soldier working through his shocking reaction to 'coming home' tries to steady himself in a hedgerow with wild nettles surrounding him.
Nature is everywhere and can be found in the most unexpected places. By showing interest and taking time to explore the edge-lands and forgotten places where Nature has been left to grow wild, we can discover more about ourselves and the life we live than we anticipated.
In this sense, we must strive to protect and persevere the places where Nature has found a home and where the natural world is free to thrive.
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