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Cal Flyn

@calflyn.bsky.social

Author of the Sunday Times bestseller ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT: LIFE IN THE POST-HUMAN LANDSCAPE—a book about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places. Currently at work on THE SAVAGE LANDSCAPE, expected early 2026

1,074 Followers  |  695 Following  |  21 Posts  |  Joined: 21.12.2024  |  2.0542

Latest posts by calflyn.bsky.social on Bluesky

Tenemos múltiples ejemplos de lo bien que le viene a la naturaleza que la dejemos tranquila, sin obsesión de "domesticarla"

Muchos en "Islas del abandono" @calflyn.bsky.social @capitanswing.bsky.social
capitanswing.com/libros/islas...

o el ejemplo de #Chornobyl theconversation.com/visitamos-la...

22.06.2025 10:21 — 👍 6    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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David Farrier & Alex Riley: Life Unstoppable From Thu 21 Aug - Our planet teems with life – across four billion years of evolution, organisms have adapted to thrive in even the most inhospitable environments. This fascinating conversation will t...

I can't wait to chat with Alex Riley and @calflyn.bsky.social about Nature's genius for resilience and transformation, as part of @edbookfest.bsky.social!

www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...

10.06.2025 13:41 — 👍 5    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 0
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Country diary: Miniature ‘oil’ slicks in lofty locations | Cal Flyn Killin, Perthshire: It was on the slopes of a Munro that I spotted a warning sign of this bone-dry spring – a tiny bacterial bloom with a petrol sheen

Today's @theguardian.com country diary by @calflyn.bsky.social is a fascinating exploration of bog iron and the creation of bacterial blooms.

#countrydiary #naturewriting

19.05.2025 06:27 — 👍 16    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
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A Hundred Classics to Get Me Through a Hundred Days of Trump Each morning, before the day’s decree, I turned to a slim book, hoping for sense, or solace.

Loved this.
"I made a vow to read one volume of the Penguin Little Black Classics each morning in bed, matins, for a hundred days."
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

14.05.2025 18:37 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
The Best Marcel Proust Books Joshua Landy, Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford, talks us through the books that make up Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time

I had a lovely time talking about Proust with @calflyn.bsky.social at “Five Books.” Hard to do justice to 3,000 pages in a short conversation, but we gave it our best shot! fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

07.05.2025 16:03 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 1
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One week until Nature's Genius is out! Huge thanks to @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social, @calflyn.bsky.social & Isabella Tree for their kind words.
I'll be doing events in Glasgow, Brighton, London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds & St Andrews - come and say hello!
Tix here: buythebook.online/natures-genius

01.05.2025 08:27 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 1
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My #favouritereads recently:

- Judith Schalansky - Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands
- Audrey Magee - The Colony
- @calflyn.bsky.social - Islands of Abandonment
- Marie Howe - What the Earth Seemed to Say
- Anna Funder - Wifedom

What have you read that you've loved recently?

#booksonbluesky

19.03.2025 09:50 — 👍 8    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0
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It's here! Nature's Genius is out on 8 May - available to pre-order now.
Thanks to @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social, @wanderinggaia.bsky.social, @calflyn.bsky.social, @casparhenderson.bsky.social, Charles Forster and Isabella Tree for some wonderful quotes!

25.03.2025 09:15 — 👍 11    🔁 4    💬 3    📌 0

I hadn't - thank you

02.03.2025 23:16 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Case Against Travel It turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best.

Simply have not been able to stop thinking about this Agnes's Callard essay since I first read it. Against travel:

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

06.02.2025 22:50 — 👍 19    🔁 0    💬 3    📌 1
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Rosebank oilfield go-ahead decision ruled unlawful by Edinburgh court Court says UK government green light for Rosebank and Jackdaw permits does not take into account CO2 emissions

🥳
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

30.01.2025 20:38 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Thank you!

26.01.2025 11:49 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

That's too kind. Thank you.

22.01.2025 17:36 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Thought you might enjoy this archive photograph of the Cape Reclus refuge, Danco Coast, Antarctica. Built in 1956, a small party of surveyors overwintered there in close quarters the following year. Think of the endless night, the freezing fog, the slowly revolving icebergs in the bay

13.01.2025 19:34 — 👍 35    🔁 2    💬 2    📌 1
Ridgeline chart showing the distribution of global daily air temperature differences from the pre-industrial reference period (1850-1900), for every year between 1940 and 2024. Each individual year resembles a hill, shaded in a darker shade of red and further to the right for warmer years. The trend is clearly towards warmer years, with 2024 standing out as first year above 1.5C.

Ridgeline chart showing the distribution of global daily air temperature differences from the pre-industrial reference period (1850-1900), for every year between 1940 and 2024. Each individual year resembles a hill, shaded in a darker shade of red and further to the right for warmer years. The trend is clearly towards warmer years, with 2024 standing out as first year above 1.5C.

NEW: 2024 has just been confirmed as the warmest year on record, and the first to breach the 1.5C threshold.

We used a ridgeline (Joy Division inspired) chart to visualise daily temperature anomalies since 1940.

2024 clearly stands out with 100% of its days above 1.3C and 75% above 1.5C.

10.01.2025 08:04 — 👍 5925    🔁 2772    💬 214    📌 331
Books About African History by African Writers Five books about African history, as recommended by broadcaster and president of SOAS, University of London, Zeinab Badawi

It was a pleasure to chat to Zeinab Badawi about why we should be reading more books about African history written by African writers for @fivebooks.com

fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

07.01.2025 21:41 — 👍 25    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 0

Haha I can see there being a market for it

05.01.2025 16:14 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Same same but different: Ben Denzer's 20 Slices of Meat (actual sausage slices this time: "Bound in mortadella with inlaid fat lettering.")
Which pairs well with his "20 Slices of American Cheese" (hardbound Kraft slices in their plastic wallets)

05.01.2025 13:07 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Im a big fan of Christopher Hänsli's Mortadella—in which every slice of a mortadella sausage has been painstakingly painted (front and back) with commentary from John Berger on "the slow changing tenderpink constellations"
www.editionpatrickfrey.com/en/books/mor...

05.01.2025 12:05 — 👍 12    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 0
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Came across the concept of the 'florilegium'—a visual catalogue of the plants growing in a specific garden. I thought you might enjoy these intricate and beautifully composed botanical engravings from Basilius Besler's Hortus Eystettensis (The Eichstätt Garden), 1613

04.01.2025 13:19 — 👍 16    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

This is lovely & quite aside from the mention of Islands of Abandonment has lots of great book recommendations!

31.12.2024 21:07 — 👍 9    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
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Made a list of new nonfiction books to look out for this spring:

30.12.2024 21:46 — 👍 30    🔁 6    💬 1    📌 2

you too!

29.12.2024 21:26 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Hello! & Merry Christmas – I hope you and your family are all well.

29.12.2024 21:23 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Brilliant

29.12.2024 20:52 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I would be delighted!

29.12.2024 20:24 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Thanks Iona! Still finding my feet....

29.12.2024 20:06 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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‘We need dramatic social and technological changes’: is societal collapse inevitable? Academic Danilo Brozović says studies of failed civilisations all point in one direction – today’s society needs radical transformation to survive

'The first, tackling the sunk-cost problem and political short-termism, is long-term planning: making “bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they have reached crisis proportions”.'

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

29.12.2024 20:02 — 👍 34    🔁 7    💬 3    📌 0

thank you!

21.12.2024 22:38 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

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