{"product_id":"stones-of-aran-pilgrimage-isbn-9781590172773","title":"Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage","description":"The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants’ traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants’ traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. After a visit with his wife in 1972, Tim Robinson moved to the islands, where he started making maps and gathering stories, eventually developing the idea for a cosmic history of Árainn, the largest of the three islands. \u003ci\u003ePilgrimage\u003c\/i\u003e is the first of two volumes that make up \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran\u003c\/i\u003e, in which Robinson maps the length and breadth of Árainn. Here he circles the entire island, following a clockwise, sunwise path in quest of the “good step,” in which walking itself becomes a form of attention and contemplation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike Annie Dillard’s \u003ci\u003ePilgrim at Tinker Creek\u003c\/i\u003e and Bruce Chatwin’s \u003ci\u003eIn Patagonia\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran\u003c\/i\u003e is not only a meticulous and mesmerizing study of place but an entrancing and altogether unclassifiable work of literature. Robinson explores Aran in both its elemental and mythical dimensions, taking us deep into the island’s folklore, wildlife, names, habitations, and natural and human histories. Bringing to life the ongoing, forever unpredictable encounter between one man and a given landscape, \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran\u003c\/i\u003e discovers worlds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRobinson’s voyage continues in \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran: Labyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e\"This is a heart-felt and informative micro-history, and a eulogy and an elegy as well. Robinson is especially good on Aran's once great but now vanished kelp industry, and all that was involved....this is a fine addition to a fertile genre.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A loving anatomy of the largest of the Aran Islands off the West Coast of Ireland, in which the point where nature and culture meet in the island is observed with great beauty and precision.\" -Colm Toibin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tim Robinson's maps and books honor the landscapes they describe. As invitations, they irresistibly beckon the archeologist, botanist, geologist, bird-watcher, folklorist, student of the Irish language, or just plain tourist.\" -Chet Raymo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eStones of Aran: Pilgrimage \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eLabyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e...is a necessity for all visitors and walkers.\"--\u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An exquisitely detailed portrait of a special landscape, this is a gem-like addition to the travel genre.\"-\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Robinson takes the reader on a meditative walking tour of Aran...[he] seeks the essence of an increasingly distant Celtic past...like a visitor peering through the warped and colored glass of an ancient church window.\" -\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A kind of travel writing \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003esometimes sponsors: a virtuosity of gratuitous fact-gathering, a penitential recording of minutiae, a recitation of information as if it were prayer.\" -\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Looked upon with a tactful, eager, strategic care that is as tender in its address as an admission of love...It is a wonderful achievement.\" -Seamus Deane, \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The best book ever written by an Englishman about Ireland.\" -\u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One of the most original, revelatory and exhilarating works of literature ever produced in Ireland.\" -\u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rapt, encyclopedic volumes...Robinson has done for the west of Ireland what Ruskin did for Venice, Proust for the voids and vasts of time.\" -\u003ci\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Climate and location, flora and fauna, culture, myth and legend, people, and over it all, the veneer of language and place name...Tim Robinson achieves this ultimate map in \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran\u003c\/i\u003e\" -\u003ci\u003eNew Scientist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Wholly irresistible.\" -\u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is a marvelous book--quirky and endearing, universal in scope yet with an extraordinary sense of place and purpose.\" -\u003ci\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One of the most interesting and important books produced in Ireland in the twentieth century. In prose as layered and rich as the area he explores, Robinson deals with space in the way Proust deals with time.\" --Sean Dunne\u003cb\u003eTim Robinson\u003c\/b\u003e was brought up in Yorkshire. He studied at Cambridge University and worked as a teacher and artist in Istanbul, Vienna, and London. In 1972 he moved to the Aran Islands, where he gained fame as a mapmaker. He learned Gaelic and began preserving Irish place-names, winning respect as an environmentalist and a Ford European Conversation Award. \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran: Pilgrimage\u003c\/i\u003e, published in 1985, won the Irish Book Award Literature Medal and a Rooney Prize Special Award for Literature in 1987. His other books include \u003ci\u003eStones of Aran: Labyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSetting Foot on the Shores of Connemara\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eMy Time in Space\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Macfarlane\u003c\/b\u003e's \u003ci\u003eMountains of the Mind\u003c\/i\u003e (2003), about wilderness and the Western imagination, won the Somerset Maugham Award and the \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e First Book Award, among other prizes.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233585606885,"sku":"NP9781590172773","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590172773.jpg?v=1767737358","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/stones-of-aran-pilgrimage-isbn-9781590172773","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}