Across Norway, Kenya, the Isle of Skye and Lindisfarne,  Doubling  Back  traces the contours of history. Following paths long mythologised by  writers and relatives gone before, Linda Cracknell charts how places  immortalised in writing and memory create portals; wrinkles in time and  geography that allow us to walk in the footsteps of others.  

Join Linda as she traverses the dangerous crevasses of the Swiss  alps to retrace the mountaineering past of the father she barely knew, follows the escape route of  a  Norwegian scientist on the run in the second world war,  or simply  celebrates the joy found in the ‘friendly paths’ of her local, regular terrain, and the ritual of returning home.

Originally published in 2014 to rave reviews and serialised on BBC radio, this revised edition includes  an account of a new journey through northern Scotland’s Flow Country,  the peatland  that is our chief Carbon store. As the century is almost one quarter  through, Linda doubles back once more to reflect on our future  on this fragile Earth.

For Linda Cracknell, exposure to wind, rock, mist, and salt water is integral to her writing process. She follows Susan Sontag’s advice to “Love words, agonise over sentences, and pay attention to the world,” observing and writing her landscapes from the particulars of each moment.  

In this varied essay collection, Linda backpacks on a small island that is connected to the mainland only at low tide. In winter snow, she hikes the wooded hillside close to her home, a place she is intimately familiar with in all seasons. And she retraces over three days the steps of a trek made by her parents seven decades earlier. She explores her inspirations, in nature and from other artists and their work, and she offers thoughtful writing prompts.  

Reading this collection will take you to new places, open your eyes to the world, and suggest ways to take note and make notes as you go-to inspire your own attentive looking, journaling, and writing practice.