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The Giant on the Skyline by Clover Stroud
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The Giant on the Skyline

On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go
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Narrator Clover Stroud

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Length 10 hours 27 minutes
Language English
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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

ยฉ2024 Clover Stroud (P)2024 Penguin Audio

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.

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.

Illustration of person sitting

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Reviews

A deeply felt meditation on home, belonging, place and memory โ€ฆ Restless, questing, The Giant on the Skyline is a travel book about wanting to stay put: a pilgrimage through a fabled English landscape โ€ฆ Stroudโ€™s best memoir yet, the most invigoratingly expansive, strikingly written. Moving โ€ฆ Transformative. Stroudโ€™s writing is assured, visceral, sexy as well as sensuous, richly coloured in every way, and often freshly poetic, whether dealing with a toddlerโ€™s tears over the broccoli touching the gravy, or with death and loss. She paints her way through the book with striking word pictures โ€ฆ Orgasmic time, druids, gentle giantsโ€ฆ The reader swirls like a leaf on a stream, coming out amazed by the richness โ€“ and unknownness โ€“ of other peopleโ€™s lives. One of the books we're most looking forward to in 2024: I'm a huge fan of Clover Stroud's writing and this memoir about home and what it means to us sounds fascinating. Stroud writes gloriouslyโ€ฆ a deeply thoughtful exploration of the meaning of home and belonging. Perhaps more than any other writer, Stroud has taken the elegant, elliptical memoir and forged it into the genre of life writing โ€ฆ In the Giant on the Skyline, Stroud has produced something exceptional: a mystical meditatation on what home means and what constitutes belonging โ€ฆ It is magical and haunting and profoundly moving. Stroud is exceptionally evocative when writing about nature and family โ€ฆ even grungy Wantage with its Greggs and charity shops sounds alluring the way Stroud describes it. Expand reviews
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