Contemporary authors like Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, Colin Fletcher and Edward Abbey have all led the field in their descriptions of wild land and how we interact with it.

That's not to say we don't have good landscape writers in the UK. People like Jim Perrin, Jay Griffiths, and Robert Macfarlane have proved equal to the best of the Americans, but there is a distinction between 'nature' writing, at which we excel in this country, and the wider philosophy of writing about 'place'.

You won't be surprised then when I tell you how delighted I was to receive a small book published by Two Ravens Press (based in the North-west Highlands), which celebrates the relationship between people and the wild lands of Britain and Ireland.

It is, as the accompanying blurb suggests, "a significant addition to the growing and increasingly important genre of meditative work on the natural world".

"A Wilder Vein" brings together short pieces of non-fiction by an eclectic collection of writers, many of whom, I must admit, I'd never heard of.

I was aware of the works of Andy Greig (I've read, and enjoyed, all his books, even his book on golf) and Margaret Elphinstone, whose books, "Voyageurs" and "The Sea Road", I'd heartily recommend.

I had the privilege of introducing Margaret at a writers' gathering in Fort William a couple of years ago, so I was aware of her love for Scotland's mountains.

Another author whose works I'm familiar with is Sara Maitland, whose passion for silence has encouraged her to live in a small house in the middle of a very remote moor in Galloway.

Her work, "A Book of Silence", is a fascinating treatise on the subject, particularly in a world where such a thing is rare indeed.

But what of the rest of the book? It begins with a diary of winter life in Ardnamurchan by a poet called Gerry Loose. A good choice for the opening essay – it drew me into the book nicely, although I did eventually become tired and irritated by the author's constant use of the ampersand instead of the word 'and'.

I enjoyed a very unusual piece on the 'slob' lands of Northern Ireland by Neil Hegarty and an absolutely brilliant exploration of whale song by Lesley Harrison from Orkney.

As you would expect, the book tends to concentrate on those areas of landscape that are also its most remote areas, but there are some surprises too. The Humber and Edinburgh don't quite fall into that category.

Not surprisingly my favourite essays came from the pens of the writers I'm familiar with.

Andy's insight into his personal relationship with the lochans of Assynt (he has a book coming out shortly about Assynt – one of my own favourite areas) and Margaret Elphinstone's essay about some of her hillwalking experiences, walking the wild 'edges' of Scotland.

The book has been edited by Linda Cracknell from Aberfeldy, a teacher of creative writing who won the Creative Scotland Award in 2007 for a collection of essays in response to a series of journeys on foot.

She's done a marvellous job in bringing such an eclectic range of writers together to create such an absorbing book.

"A Wilder Vein" is published by Two Raven Press. It costs £10.99.

www.cameronmcneish.co.uk

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