Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape

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Shortlisted for this year’s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction (the winner is announced on 16 November), the book describes the isolated and often eerily dystopian fortress islands, irradiated exclusion zones, abandoned towns and shuttered industrial sites that have been recolonised by the natural world. This sees her engage with the Ehrlichs and the Scrantons of this world who believe it is already too late, that the geological forces put into motion will run their course no matter what, and that the best we can do is brace for impact.

This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. Photograph: Chris Page View image in fullscreen Cal Flyn’s hypnotic tones chime with the richly descriptive and atmospheric nature of her prose.

Abandoned ship scrapyards around New York hide a darker legacy of soil and sludge laced with lethal levels of dioxins, PCBs, and pesticides that is best left undisturbed. I think one of the reasons that people have responded to the book is that sense of hope and faith in the natural world that perhaps comes through in these locations.

Filled with understanding and adventure … Written with a beautiful attention to detail and a generous and imaginative frame of mind.

As far as I can tell, Flyn has no background in biology, yet Islands of Abandonment is surprisingly rich in biological and ecological details that she gets right. I know that when I think about the environment when I think about climate change and all the damage that's been done, it is overpowering and I think to move on and to keep going every day it is important for us to have that sense of hope and optimism.