PublishedHachette, May 2017 |
ISBN9780733635960 |
FormatSoftcover, 304 pages |
Dimensions23cm × 15.2cm × 2.6cm |
'a controlled and literate work that earns its emotional peaks' - Saturday Paper
'a delight' - The Australian
A memoir about staying in one place, told through trees, by the award-winning author of MR WIGG, NEST and WHERE THE TREES WERE.
"The understorey is where I live, alongside these plants and creatures. I tend the forest, stand at the foot of trees and look up, gather what has fallen."
This is the story of a tree-change, of escaping suburban Brisbane for a cottage on ten acres in search of a quiet life. Of establishing a writers retreat shortly before the Global Financial Crisis hit, and of losing just about everything when it did.
It is also the story of what the author found there: the beauty of nature and her own path as a writer. Understory is a memoir about staying in one place, told through trees, by the award-winning author of MR WIGG, NEST and WHERE THE TREES WERE.
'Something powerful ... takes hold of the reader and transports [you] to the forest floor in a kind of awe' - Sydney Morning Herald
'I love the way the reader gets lost in the trees and then lost in Inga's life and then lost in the trees again. Understory feels so rich and nourishing, as if the restorative power of the Australian bush is transmitted through her words.' - Richard Glover, bestselling author and radio presenter
'a fine addition to the genre of Australian nature writing' Books + Publishing
Marijke is the Customer Service Supervisor at Boffins and has been a Boffin for over five years, and a bird fanatic for even longer. She reads anything interesting.
Inga Simpson’s fiction work has often shown her love of the Australian bush, and this memoir of both her personal journey as a writer and as a caretaker of the Australian bush is a perfect continuation of the theme. With each chapter dedicated to a certain tree species, Inga travels from her childhood memories of ironbarks and eucalypts, to an escape from Brisbane city life to the Queensland hinterlands and a rustic country property. Books like Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees have given readers a new appreciation for the trees in our lives, but to read an Australian narrative is especially enjoyable.
