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katyboo52's review
5.0
I was sent this by mistake from the publisher through Netgalley and I'm so glad they did. It's a fantastic book and an absolute delight to read. I enjoyed every moment. Flyn is a wonderful writer with a strong poetic sense which makes her prose beautiful to read. The subject matter, looking at rewilding and how nature takes back areas abandoned by man is fascinating. The range of places Flyn visits is wonderful and I learned so much.
dclark32's review
5.0
Man, last year's Baillie Gifford prize shortlist had some gems. Islands of Abandonment is a brilliant book, and my first five-star read of the year. In a sure sign of originality, I find it impossible to classify. It's a work of environmentalism certainly, but that is not close to all that is. It's a travelogue, a a philosophical work, a non-fiction investigation of dystopian society. It bristles with a keen intelligence and a sense of adventure.
It is a hopeful book, but not naïve. Flyn travels to some seriously damaged environments, enough so that humans have now been barred off, and in each place she sees signs of nature's resilience and rejuvenation. Animals adapt, new species arise, forests grow back.
But she is under no illusions about them being good news stories. The majority of the locations only find themselves in their respective situations because of catastrophic damage caused by humans (e.g. Chernobyl), often to other humans (Verdun, the Cypriot DMZ). No longer fit for human life, nature has been left to its own devices. In an interlude set in the United States - in a decaying Detroit, and toxic post-industrial New Jersey - she finds recesses of the deepest squalor and misery. At the same time, even when there are signs of renewal, there is no question of nature returning to "the way things were". That pre-human condition is gone forever.
Perhaps the future, though it may look different from the past, can nonetheless contain a thriving natural world. This is not a book that offers solutions, nor even definite conclusions, save one: in a world threatened by climate change and seemingly despoiled by humans, all is not lost.
5/5
It is a hopeful book, but not naïve. Flyn travels to some seriously damaged environments, enough so that humans have now been barred off, and in each place she sees signs of nature's resilience and rejuvenation. Animals adapt, new species arise, forests grow back.
But she is under no illusions about them being good news stories. The majority of the locations only find themselves in their respective situations because of catastrophic damage caused by humans (e.g. Chernobyl), often to other humans (Verdun, the Cypriot DMZ). No longer fit for human life, nature has been left to its own devices. In an interlude set in the United States - in a decaying Detroit, and toxic post-industrial New Jersey - she finds recesses of the deepest squalor and misery. At the same time, even when there are signs of renewal, there is no question of nature returning to "the way things were". That pre-human condition is gone forever.
Perhaps the future, though it may look different from the past, can nonetheless contain a thriving natural world. This is not a book that offers solutions, nor even definite conclusions, save one: in a world threatened by climate change and seemingly despoiled by humans, all is not lost.
5/5
sams84's review against another edition
5.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this book as Flyn recounts her travels around the world to all those places that have been changed in some way by humans and details how it is recovering and being used by new populations, including by some people. I loved how it demonstrates that for all our grandeur and belief that we are eternal, these examples show that we really aren't (as an ecologist I find this rather pleasing). Flyn covers all aspects of each site she visits, recounting its history and how it came to be developed, how it came to be abandoned, and how it has and continues to recover often in spite of what we left behind. This is an oddly uplifting look at the world, especially for those that work to protect the natural world, but should also be taken as a bit of warning for us as a species as it shows we are very much dispensable as far as nature is concerned.
blundershelf's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
5.0
Gran thought that despite how interesting this book is, it's overall depressing. I have to disagree with her as I found it to be a hopeful (and super compelling) look at how nature survives and rebounds without humanity/intervention. Flyn pulls from sociology, history, ecology, anthropology and personal anecdote to create narratives of abandoned landscapes irrevocably altered by humans. Her interviews especially are so excellent because she meets people where they're at and withholds knee-jerk judgements. I think the world would be a better place if this book were widely read.
janey's review
5.0
Wow, this was great! The subject matter alone is fascinating, and the color she added made it really terrific. Flyn writes with the feeling of a poet and transports the reader to places that by all rights should not be magical but, in her hands, they are.