Books by Paul Kingsnorth
Paul Kingsnorth is a journalist and author. His books include One No, Many Yeses and Real England. Kidland, his first collection of poetry, was published in 2011. In 2009 he co-founded the Dark Mountain project – a call for a literary movement to respond to the ongoing collapse of the world’s ecological and economic certainties
Alexandria: A Novel
by Paul Kingsnorth
Top of the pile of fantasy books to be read is Paul Kingsnorth’s Alexandria, only just published in the UK. A small religious community is living in what were once the fens of eastern England. They are perhaps the world’s last human survivors. Now, they find themselves stalked by a force that draws ever closer, a force intent on destroying everything they stand for. Set on the far side of the ecological apocalypse, Paul Kingsnorth’s new novel is a mythical, polyphonic drama driven by elemental themes: of community versus the self, the mind versus the body, machine versus man – of whether to put your faith in the present or the future.
Alexandria completes the Buckmaster Trilogy, which began with Kingsnorth’s prize-winning The Wake. That was set in distant Saxon England, and I was reminded of it by Sistersong.
“Kingsnorth served a strenuous apprenticeship in environmental activism before he decided that the activist agenda assumed an optimistic view of what was possible… He decided that all that we can do is to recover and to re-tell the stories that have formed us as humans: stories that tell us how our shapes have been determined by the pressure on us from the non-human forces of the world.” Read more...
The Best of Nature Writing 2019
Charles Foster, Medical Scientist
Interviews with Paul Kingsnorth
The best books on Uncivilisation, recommended by Paul Kingsnorth
Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of the Dark Mountain project, urges the need for uncivilisation: the process of getting beyond our human assumptions, such as the myth of unfailing linear progress. It is about looking at humanity in the wider context of the whole planet, and the imminent ecological crisis.
Interviews where books by Paul Kingsnorth were recommended
The Best of Nature Writing 2019, recommended by Charles Foster
What do we talk about when we talk about nature? Almost everything, says the academic and bestselling author of Being a Beast, Charles Foster. Here he selects five of the best works of nature writing in 2019; books that seek to connect us more deeply with the non-human world.
The Best Fantasy Books of 2021
What sets fantasy apart from other genres of fiction? Its untethering from reality. In a year like 2021, that will be a welcome feature for many readers out there. If you’re looking for the best fantasy books, 2021 is shaping up to be a vintage year in the genre. However you like your fantasy—epic or short, high or low, dark or comic, contemporary or historical—it’s a great time to be an avid reader in the realms of the imagination.
