- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Hamish Hamilton; First Edition edition (7 April 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0241145007
- ISBN-13: 978-0241145005
- Product Dimensions: 22 x 14.4 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 176,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
Extraordinary...Deep Country is so powerful --Nick Groom, Independent
His rich prose will transport you to a real life Narnian world that CS Lewis would have envied --Jules Hudson, BBC Countryfile
A life that may redefine the word solitary yet is also crowded by the thrum of the natural world --Metro
For those of us enslaved by mortgages and consumerism or dull work...this book will resonate with its many epiphanies. --Caught by the River
A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales --Jay Griffiths, author of Wild
For those of us enslaved by mortgages and consumerism or dull work...this book will resonate with its many epiphanies --Caught by the River
A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales --Jay Griffiths, author of The Wild
A life that may redefine the word solitary yet is also crowded by the thrum of the natural world.
--Metro
His rich prose will transport you to a real life Narnian world that CS Lewis would have envied --Jules Hudson, BBC Countryfile
A life that may redefine the word solitary yet is also crowded by the thrum of the natural world --Metro
For those of us enslaved by mortgages and consumerism or dull work...this book will resonate with its many epiphanies. --Caught by the River
A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales --Jay Griffiths, author of Wild
For those of us enslaved by mortgages and consumerism or dull work...this book will resonate with its many epiphanies --Caught by the River
A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales --Jay Griffiths, author of The Wild
A life that may redefine the word solitary yet is also crowded by the thrum of the natural world.
--Metro
Product Description
Neil Ansell spent five years living between the back of beyond and the middle of nowhere, on his own, with no electricity, gas or water and effectively only the wildlife around him for company.
His dilapidated cottage, rented for £100 per year, is so exposed to the elements that it appears to rain uphill, and so remote that you can walk for twenty miles west without seeing a single other dwelling. As the years pass he feels himself dissolving into, and becoming, just another part of the landscape.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Neil Ansell had the opportunity to rent a dilapidated cottage deep in the hills of Mid-Wales, in countryside so remote that you could walk twenty miles in one direction without encountering another dwelling. What started as short-term let, turned out to be a five-year period of solitary living, far removed from the services we expect to find today - hot water from a tap, central heating and plumbing. The rent of £100 a year reflected the lack of services but failed to take account of the incredible beauty of the location and the land available to the tenant.
Neil has a great affinity with nature and things which would phase other people were causes of delight. I am not sure how I would feel about sharing my home with twenty of thirty bats for example. Even Neil however baulked at the spring-invasions of mice - fortunately the pretty field mouse variety rather than the disease carrying house mouse. The mice reduced Neil to hanging food in carrier bags from ham hooks embedded in the ceiling. The only way Neil could reduce the population of mice was to trap them and carry them across a river where he released them. No doubt killing them would have had no effect other than to make space for others.
Neil found that his life settled down into natural rhythms. He even developed his own rituals, such as seeing in the New Year from the summit of his hill or walking overnight into the hills at the Summer Solstice so he could watch the dawn from a mountain top. Five years of solitude was broken up by visits from friends, but Neil became accustomed to his way of life and found that he welcomed the return to quietness when they departed.
While it is interesting to read how Neil looked after himself, the major part of the book is a sort of extended nature diary - fascinating for anyone who loves the ebb and flow of the seasons and the changing wildlife that accompanies them. The hills of Wales are remarkable rich in wild-life of every description and Neil went out of his way to cultivate a relationship with it - maintaining a large number of nest boxes for example, which he patrolled regularly to check on the progress of his many bird families.
Neil already had an interest in "food for free" having lived in Sweden where "foraging in the wood in autumn is practically a national pastime". He gathered chanterelles, parasols and ceps, preserving them in olive oil with dill and coriander seeds. He made thirty jars of jam each year from berries found in the woods, and he gathered wild strawberries.
The solitary life was a phase which could not last forever. Neil is now a successful BBC journalist and lives with his family in the city of Brighton. He still returns to his Welsh cottage but things are not quite the same - in his epilogue he gives the impression of returning to the location of an earlier part of his life, now long gone.
Neil has recorded a video for Penguin Books with some footage of the cottage which lets us get a good idea of where he spent his five years with nature and self-sufficiency.
Neil has a great affinity with nature and things which would phase other people were causes of delight. I am not sure how I would feel about sharing my home with twenty of thirty bats for example. Even Neil however baulked at the spring-invasions of mice - fortunately the pretty field mouse variety rather than the disease carrying house mouse. The mice reduced Neil to hanging food in carrier bags from ham hooks embedded in the ceiling. The only way Neil could reduce the population of mice was to trap them and carry them across a river where he released them. No doubt killing them would have had no effect other than to make space for others.
Neil found that his life settled down into natural rhythms. He even developed his own rituals, such as seeing in the New Year from the summit of his hill or walking overnight into the hills at the Summer Solstice so he could watch the dawn from a mountain top. Five years of solitude was broken up by visits from friends, but Neil became accustomed to his way of life and found that he welcomed the return to quietness when they departed.
While it is interesting to read how Neil looked after himself, the major part of the book is a sort of extended nature diary - fascinating for anyone who loves the ebb and flow of the seasons and the changing wildlife that accompanies them. The hills of Wales are remarkable rich in wild-life of every description and Neil went out of his way to cultivate a relationship with it - maintaining a large number of nest boxes for example, which he patrolled regularly to check on the progress of his many bird families.
Neil already had an interest in "food for free" having lived in Sweden where "foraging in the wood in autumn is practically a national pastime". He gathered chanterelles, parasols and ceps, preserving them in olive oil with dill and coriander seeds. He made thirty jars of jam each year from berries found in the woods, and he gathered wild strawberries.
The solitary life was a phase which could not last forever. Neil is now a successful BBC journalist and lives with his family in the city of Brighton. He still returns to his Welsh cottage but things are not quite the same - in his epilogue he gives the impression of returning to the location of an earlier part of his life, now long gone.
Neil has recorded a video for Penguin Books with some footage of the cottage which lets us get a good idea of where he spent his five years with nature and self-sufficiency.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having seen this book reviewed in The Guardian and then mentioned on Caught By The River, I knew it was a must-read. Beautifully evocative descriptions of the countryside, and in particular the wildlife, in the Welsh hills. This is a wildlife book - if from some of the reviews you're expecting a book about living remotely, as the author admits, he soon disappears from his narrative himself, to find himself writing about the wildlife that surrounds (and even lives within) the cottage. So don't expect a "lifestyle" book about rural living; this is nature writing, about the flora and fauna and within that, mostly about the birds that he comes to recognise around him.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you are at all interested in observing the natural world and birds in particular, I suggest you read this book. On face value it's a bit of an oddity and flies in the face of the usual style of 'nature' books. There is no endless middle class pontificating about nature as 'spiritual' or how we are slowly destroying it. Nor is it tainted with dubious autobiography; we don't really know who Neil is, or why he has chosen to live a life of self imposed isolation in an old Keeper's cottage in the Cambrian Mountains.
None of this matters though, because what we do get is Neil's first hand observations of what it was like to live in this remote location, among the creatures who live and visit there, for five years, through every season and at every time of day. Neil's descriptions of the natural world are clear and straightforward, no technical nonsense or reference to other sources. This is what he saw, where he lived. And for my money it's a much better insight into landscape and its denizens than many of the better known and better selling 'nature' books.
Neil's descriptions of bird behaviour are beautiful and often at odds with of accepted knowledge, but they have the authenticity of experience about them and that, ultimately, is the only way to get to know the world; by getting out there, sitting and looking. As Baker, in The Peregrine, says 'The hardest thing to see is what is there'. And in this book Neil will take you to what is there and show you through his own eyes. It's one of those books I could have picked up and read every day to learn more about the various families of birds he lived among, or the activities of the mink and otter we only learn a little of. If you like wild places, bird behaviour and tales of living in the middle of nowhere then buy this book!
None of this matters though, because what we do get is Neil's first hand observations of what it was like to live in this remote location, among the creatures who live and visit there, for five years, through every season and at every time of day. Neil's descriptions of the natural world are clear and straightforward, no technical nonsense or reference to other sources. This is what he saw, where he lived. And for my money it's a much better insight into landscape and its denizens than many of the better known and better selling 'nature' books.
Neil's descriptions of bird behaviour are beautiful and often at odds with of accepted knowledge, but they have the authenticity of experience about them and that, ultimately, is the only way to get to know the world; by getting out there, sitting and looking. As Baker, in The Peregrine, says 'The hardest thing to see is what is there'. And in this book Neil will take you to what is there and show you through his own eyes. It's one of those books I could have picked up and read every day to learn more about the various families of birds he lived among, or the activities of the mink and otter we only learn a little of. If you like wild places, bird behaviour and tales of living in the middle of nowhere then buy this book!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Birds of Mid-Wales
That's what this book should have been called, or maybe just "Birds, Birds, and more Birds". At least three quarters of this book are descriptions of all the many birds he sees... Read more
Published 7 months ago by J. Brady
The View from the hill
For many people the very idea of spending five years alone, living in a cottage with no electricity or running water on a Welsh hillside would be a vision of hell. Read more
Published 9 months ago by SCM
relaxing and serene
Peace and quiet. Time to hear yourself think. No need for a clock. All things that sound pretty wonderful to me, and that are found in this lovely book. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Amy Henry
Effortless joy
I loved this book. I read it on my commute to London for a week and I felt as though I had slipped into another world. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Cliona
Birdwatching and (Virtually) Nothing But Bird Watching
This book is marketed as being about what it is like to spend 5 years on your own in the Welsh countryside. Read more
Published 11 months ago by LucyButler
Deep Country - a joy to read.
If you love the country and it's wildlife, I believe this book should become one of the gems on your bookshelves. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mrs. J. E. Gorman
Idyllic but disappointing
I eagerly ordered this book immediately after hearing Neil Ansell's BBC Radio 4 interview about his 5 years of isolation in the Welsh Hills. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Tonto McGurk
BRILLIANT READ
"DEEP COUNTRY" has everything you might want from a book: it is well written, it's gripping and entertaining, and I learned from it. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jenny Backwell
Detailed book, but bit repetitive
Good book, written from a widelife perspective. I would have preferred a little more about the reasons for leaving society for 5 years, but also some of the practical nitty gritty... Read more
Published 12 months ago by matt_suzanne
Hello Neil it's Max Daly
I havent read this book yet, in fact i've just ordered it, but it's bound to be good. Neil - give us a shout on gmail.com if you can.
Ta
Ta
Published 12 months ago by M. Daly
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