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The Giant on the Skyline

The Giant on the Skyline

On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split?


Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America. The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC. Forced to leave the home she loves and consider these questions, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, walk the Ridgway, understand a little of the history of her landscape and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go. In doing so she paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation.

'Clover Stroud is a fearless explorer of the human heart, and a writer of incomparable grace and passion.' Elizabeth Gilbert

'Clover's writing is sensationally beautiful.' Laura Cumming

'Stroud's writing is knife-sharp, beautiful and profound.' Madeline Miller

©2024 Clover Stroud (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Reviews

  • A deeply felt meditation on home, belonging, place and memory … Restless, questing, The Giant on the Skyline is a travel book about wanting to stay put: a pilgrimage through a fabled English landscape … Stroud’s best memoir yet, the most invigoratingly expansive, strikingly written. Moving … Transformative.
    Patricia Nichol, Daily Mail

About the author

Clover Stroud

Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children.
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