"*SHORTLISTED FOR THE WESTMINSTER BOOK AWARDS AND THE UNWIN AWARD*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE*
*A WATERSTONES AND GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2024*
'Both dynamite and medicine' AMY-JANE BEER
'Timely and rousing'
THE TIMES
The lie of the land: that Britain’s landowners care for the countryside.
Our landowning elite are paid billions of taxpayer pounds to be good stewards. But these same landowners have carelessly trampled over our best-loved landscapes, leaving the rivers polluted, fenlands drained, and moorlands burned.
Guy Shrubsole has travelled across Britain to expose the lie and meet the communities fighting back to restore our lost landscapes. This is a bold, shared vision for our nation’s wild places, and how we can treat them with the awe and care they deserve.
*Guy Shrubsole's The Lost Rainforests of Britain was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 2023-04-30*"
"WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION 2023
The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year
As seen on Countryfile
‘If anyone was born to save Britain’s rainforests, it was Guy Shrubsole’ Sunday Times
Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society Literary Prize
Temperate rainforest may once have covered up to one-fifth of Britain, inspiring Celtic druids, Welsh wizards, Romantic poets, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s most loved creations. Though only fragments now remain, they are home to a dazzling variety of luminous life-forms.
In this awe-inspiring investigation, Guy Shrubsole travels through the Western Highlands and the Lake District, down to the rainforests of Wales, Devon, and Cornwall to map these spectacular lost worlds for the first time.
This is the extraordinary tale of one person’s quest to find Britain’s lost rainforests – and bring them back.
*Guy Shrubsole's The Lost Rainforests of Britain was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 2023-04-30*"
"‘A formidable, brave and important book’ Robert Macfarlane
‘Absolutely brilliant…You cannot read this book and defend the establishment’ Alastair Campbell, The Rest is Politics
Who owns England?
Behind this simple question lies this country’s oldest and best-kept secret. This is the history of how England’s elite came to own our land, and an inspiring manifesto for how to open up our countryside once more.
This book has been a long time coming. Since 1086, in fact. For centuries, England’s elite have covered up how they got their hands on millions of acres of our land, by constructing walls, burying surveys and more recently, sheltering behind offshore shell companies. But with the dawn of digital mapping and the Freedom of Information Act, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to hide.
Trespassing through tightly-guarded country estates, ecologically ravaged grouse moors and empty Mayfair mansions, writer and activist Guy Shrubsole has used these 21st century tools to uncover a wealth of never-before-seen information about the people who own our land, to create the most comprehensive map of land ownership in England that has ever been made public.
From secret military islands to tunnels deep beneath London, Shrubsole unearths truths concealed since the Domesday Book about who is really in charge of this country – at a time when Brexit is meant to be returning sovereignty to the people. Melding history, politics and polemic, he vividly demonstrates how taking control of land ownership is key to tackling everything from the housing crisis to climate change – and even halting the erosion of our very democracy.
It’s time to expose the truth about who owns England – and finally take back our green and pleasant land.
*Guy's next book The Lie of the Land is out now*"
