The Lost Spells (Lost Works)

Brief Description:

The follow-up to the internationally bestselling sensation The Lost Words, The Lost Spells is a beautiful collection of poems and illustrations that evokes the magic of the everyday natural world.

THE FOLLOW-UP TO AN INTERNATIONAL SENSATION:

• The Lost Words has been a massive success and has sold over 36,000 copies in North America. It is an international bestseller, was a finalist for the Wainwright Prize and winner of the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, and has inspired grassroots re-wilding movements and crowd-funded giveaways of the book. The Lost Spells, the earlier book's kindred spirit, will no doubt have a similar impact and reach new audiences.

• The Lost Spells is a gorgeously designed, fully illustrated, one-of-a-kind book that would make the perfect gift book for the holidays. Jackie Morris' artwork brings to life the poems' nature themes and would stand out even without the accompanying evocative poems. The Lost Spells is more freely designed than its predecessor, so the poems and illustrations flow across multiple pages. It is also smaller in trim size, but longer. This is a book designed to be carried around by readers and read outdoors in nature.

• Robert Macfarlane is a major literary and cultural figure in the U.K. His writings on environmental topics are frequently featured in the Guardian and Granta. He is a regular presence on television and hosted an adaptation of his book The Wild Places on BBC's The Natural World. His travel book The Old Ways was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and Philip Pullman named it one of his best books of 2012. His most recent book, Underland, won the Wainwright Prize and was named one of the best books of the twenty-first century by the Guardian.

• Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris's exploration of nature ties into the current growing awareness of the environment, which climaxed in 2019 with the massive Global Climate Strike. The Lost Spells speaks to those worried about the vanishing natural world, a larger-than-ever group thanks to new studies and articles on biodiversity loss. Both Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have been involved in the Extinction Rebellion environmental movement in the U.K.

• This book is perfect for adults interested in the "re-enchantment movement" or those who just want to rediscover nature, and children newly interested in plants and animals will be captivated by the beautiful hand-painted illustrations and poems.

PRAISE FOR ROBERT MACFARLANE, JACKIE MORRIS, AND THE LOST SPELLS

International Bestseller

"Elegant ... There is enough magic here to summon wild things even for those who are snug indoors." -- Wall Street Journal

"This unusually beautiful book brings to readers the magic and wonder of nature ... Breathtakingly magical." -- Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEWS

"Macfarlane's lyrics ... ring with consonance ("Thrift thrives where most life fails, falls, / is cast adrift") and wordplay ("Woodpecker, tree-wrecker") ... Morris's fluid artwork renders the elegant tilt of a fox's snout, birds' calligraphic flight patterns, and the eyelike whorls of silver birch bark ... One to treasure." -- Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

"Macfarlane and Morris bring us the mystery and wisdom of wild things as complementary and consolatory to our tame incompleteness ... These painted verses sing and shimmer with a magical exuberance that renders the wild world not parallel, not foreign, but proximate, beckoning, native to our own souls ... A charm against the curse of civilization, of exploitation, of apathy." -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"Through deeply humane poems paired with warm illustrations, MacFarlane and Morris invited readers into the space where the enchanting natural world meets the expansive imagination ... Crafted with the same tenderness as its sibling." -- Shelf Awareness

"The Lost Spells employs Robert Macfarlane's rapturous language and Jackie Morris's bewitching illustrations to return language and art to their ancient occupations: building bridges of understanding between human and non-human worlds. More than a mere book, it's a brave act of shamanism that touches and transforms the reader's heart, healing and encouraging at a time when the world feels most desperately in need of restoration." -- Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

PRAISE FOR ROBERT MACFARLANE, JACKIE MORRIS, AND THE LOST WORDS

Winner, CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal

Finalist, Wainwright Prize

"A gorgeous book!" -- @MargaretAtwood

"Every page is enthralling." -- New York Times

"Art, verse, and nature are combined with entertaining elegance in The Lost Words ... This large, quality hardcover allows words and watercolour to shine and results in a work that can be left open at any page to stunning effect." -- Shelf Awareness, STARRED REVIEW

"A gorgeous coffee-table book ... with stunning artwork made with watercolour and gold leaf, and poems on words ranging from 'acorn' to 'wren.'" -- PEI Guardian

"Stylish and melancholy, The Lost Words is a book to savour." -- Wall Street Journal

"My top book of the year." -- Spectator

"Sumptuous ... a book combining meticulous wordcraft with exquisite illustrations deftly restores language describing the natural world to the children's lexicon ... The Lost Words is a beautiful book and an important one." -- Observer

"One of the most striking and poignant picture books of the season ... This giant tome contains not only beautiful illustrations but a haunting series of poems that read like a summoning back of the wild ... A book in which every page seems like an act of love." -- Herald

"A breathtaking book." -- New Statesman

"A sumptuous, nostalgic ode to a disappearing landscape." -- Kirkus Reviews

"This union of natural history, poetry, art, and whimsy is, indeed, a truly enchanting all-ages book of life to contemplate, read aloud, and share." -- Booklist

"Utterly enchanting, it's a celebration of nature -- but also language itself. If I ran the world, it'd be in every school library and classroom possible." -- Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

"One of the most stunningly beautiful books I have had the pleasure of reading (and rereading) this year." -- Fab Book Reviews

"Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language -- and its scope." -- Jeanette Winterson

"The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year." -- Frank Cottrell-Boyce

"Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty." -- Alex Preston

"Elegant ... There is enough magic here to summon wild things even for those who are snug indoors." -- Wall Street Journal

"Through deeply humane poems paired with warm illustrations, MacFarlane and Morris invited readers into the space where the enchanting natural world meets the expansive imagination . . . Crafted with the same tenderness as its sibling." -- Shelf Awareness

"Macfarlane and Morris bring us the mystery and wisdom of wild things as complementary and consolatory to our tame incompleteness ... These painted verses sing and shimmer with a magical exuberance that renders the wild world not parallel, not foreign, but proximate, beckoning, native to our own souls ... A charm against the curse of civilization, of exploitation, of apathy." -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"An enchanting diversion into the wonder and magic of nature." -- Bulletin

"This unusually beautiful book brings to readers the magic and wonder of nature ... Breathtakingly magical." -- Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

"Macfarlane's lyrics ... ring with consonance ("Thrift thrives where most life fails, falls, / is cast adrift") and wordplay ("Woodpecker, tree-wrecker") ... Morris's fluid artwork renders the elegant tilt of a fox's snout, birds' calligraphic flight patterns, and the eyelike whorls of silver birch bark ... One to treasure." -- Publisher's Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

"The Lost Spells employs Robert Macfarlane's rapturous language and Jackie Morris's bewitching illustrations to return language and art to their ancient occupations: building bridges of understanding between human and non-human worlds. More than a mere book, it's a brave act of shamanism that touches and transforms the reader's heart, healing and encouraging at a time when the world feels most desperately in need of restoration." -- Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Review Citations:

• Publishers Weekly 09/28/2020 (EAN 9781487007799, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
• Kirkus Reviews 12/30/0001 (EAN 9781487007799, Hardcover)
• Shelf Awareness 11/03/2020 (EAN 9781487007799, Hardcover)
• School Library Journal 12/01/2020 pg. 115 (EAN 9781487007799, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Contributor Bio:MacFarlane, Robert

ROBERT MACFARLANE's Sunday Times- and New York Times-bestselling books include Is a River Alive?, Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind, as well as a book-length prose-poem, Ness. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, won prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theatre, radio and dance. He has also written operas, plays, albums, choral works, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated closely with artists including Olafur Eliasson, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2023 in Toronto he was the inaugural winner of the Weston International Award for a body of work in the field of non-fiction. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is presently working on a graphic-novel re-telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

JACKIE MORRIS has written or illustrated over seventy books, including the beloved children's classics Tell Me a Dragon and East of the Sun, West of the Moon and a volume of modern folklore for readers of all ages, Wild Folk, co-created with Tamsin Abbott, as well as introducing and illustrating Barbara Newhall Follett's gem of wild literature, The House Without Windows. She is the internationally bestselling and award-winning co-creator of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells, two books which have captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers of all ages. In 2018 she won the Kate Greenaway Medal and the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for The Lost Words. Her artwork is held by public art collections in the UK and USA and has been published in the New Statesman, Independent and Guardian among other venues. She tours and performs with the Spell Songs ensemble around the UK, and is a Fellow of Herefordshire Art College.