My review of Robert Macfarlane’s Underland

My short review of Robert Macfarlane’s absorbing and intelligent Underland is in the 7th-20th June issue of The Lady – not online, but in all the shops today.

The book wasn’t always comfortable reading for semi-claustrophobes like me (I don’t even care for lifts), but it’s often good to force yourself into places you’d really rather not go. It makes an interesting counterpoint to Norbert Casteret’s 1940 classic Ten Years Under the Earth – which is more audacious as well as grittier, as you would expect from the period and the World War I experiences of the author, but lacks Macfarlane’s articulacy.