David Gaunt

Probably the outstanding piece of writing I read this year was Underland by Robert McFarlane, which you could describe as that because he is such a breathtakingly beautiful writer.

I mean, very rich, probably overwrought for some people's tastes.

But the fact is he's a Cambridge academic who must have the best job because he just says, I have to go adventuring now.

climbing mountains and walking great distances and rediscovering lost worlds.

And in this case, he's taken us under, under, under land.

And he's used the whole history of the mythology across cultures of why we're so incredibly scared of what's down there because it's death.

And he risks death in this book, literally, in many different places of the world just to experience what it's like to be there.

So he goes caving and he gets stuck.

He goes in the catacombs under the railway lines in Paris.

And it is the most uncomfortable.

I've given this to a few other people to test.

you have to put it away because you are so scared and claustrophobic of what he's experiencing as he's crawling along with a backpack underneath, you know, anyway, everyone gets very, quite rightly, very scared of that situation.

But he also takes you off the coast of Norway where fishermen have been going for generations and diving to get whatever they are down there.

You can get off the coast of Norway at any time of the year and avoiding the icebergs.

But it's all wrapped in a very, very profound feeling about this is the Anthropocene life we are now living and this is the potential end of it.

And from underground, I can show you why that's the case.

Yeah, I think it's an exceptionally beautiful... He's been writing wonderfully for 20 years, but I think this is the most important thing he's written.

A Journey Through Deep Time is the subtitle and that's what it is.

I did.

Well, I've been throwing rushy across the room for years.