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  • The Sacred Combe: A Search for Humanity’s Heartland
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The Sacred Combe: A Search for Humanity’s Heartland

Written by: Simon Barnes


We've all got one. A secret, special place. Hidden. Enclosed. A little greener and more fertile than the world outside. Here the birds are slightly more exotic, slightly more confiding, the grass greener and the fruit sweeter. To know such a place, to love such a place, is part of being human.

Sometimes it s a place of myth, like the Garden of Eden. Sometimes it exists in fictional form, like Narnia or Shangri-La. Sometimes it comes in memories of a golden day in childhood, or in a glorious, doomed love affair. Sometimes it s a real place that we daren't go back to, for fear that it or we had changed.

And just occasionally it s a real place. A place where you leave a small piece of your heart and return as often as you can so as not to lose it. It s a place of privilege.

Simon Barnes found such a place when he woke in his first morning in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia to find elephants eating the roof of his hut. It was a homecoming, and he has been faithful to that passion ever since. Here he has known peace, danger, discomfort, fear and a profound sense of oneness with the Valley, with all nature and with the world. With the Valley he found completion.

This book explores the special places of the mind and the world, with special reference to the Luangwa Valley and the glorious support of the Valley s great artist, Pam Carr. It s a book about the quest for paradise, and the eternal human search to find such a paradise everywhere.

THE SACRED COMBE was published on 14th January 2016 by Bloomsbury.

Other publications by Simon Barnes



The Meaning of Birds

The Meaning of Birds

Losing It: A Lifetime in Pursuit of Sporting Excellence

Ten Million Aliens

Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed

Epic: A 30-Year Search for the Soul of Sport

Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways to Make Nature More Visible

A Book of Heroes: or A Sporting Half-Century

My Natural History

On The Marsh

The Horsey Life

How to be Wild

A Bad Birdwatchers Companion

How to be a Bad Birdwatcher

Miss Chance

Hong Kong Belongers

Rogue Lion Safaris

Wildness and Wet

The Game’s Gone

The History Of The World In 100 Animals

The Green Planet

The History of the World in 100 Animals
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Twitter
  • about 44 mins ago'If the examples of the past reveal anything, it is that female figures of authority are always at the ready to risโ€ฆ https://t.co/w2O0eGndeh
  • about 2 hours ago'journey to the wilder' in @amy_historia's #STORYLAND! a taste in the blog post below๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡ @QuercusBooksโ€ฆ https://t.co/xJwiRS01Wi
  • about 2 hours ago๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜ https://t.co/iUNpKNmOEw
Authors
  • A-C
  • D-F
  • G-K
  • L-M
  • N-Q
  • R-S
  • T-V
  • W-Z
Twitter
  • about 44 mins ago'If the examples of the past reveal anything, it is that female figures of authority are always at the ready to risโ€ฆ https://t.co/w2O0eGndeh
  • about 2 hours ago'journey to the wilder' in @amy_historia's #STORYLAND! a taste in the blog post below๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡ @QuercusBooksโ€ฆ https://t.co/xJwiRS01Wi
  • about 2 hours ago๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜ https://t.co/iUNpKNmOEw
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