Craig Childs Audiobooks

Atlas of a Lost World, American wilderness reported by a writer who walks it

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Who is Craig Childs?

Craig Childs, born in 1967, is an American writer, naturalist and wilderness explorer, known above all for his writing about the American Southwest. The billing matters: he is not a desk-bound nature writer but one whose work grows out of long stretches in wild country, with the landscape itself as subject, teacher and occasional adversary.

That first-hand quality is the foundation of his reputation. The naturalist’s knowledge and the explorer’s willingness to go and see for himself come together on the page, giving his books an authority that armchair research cannot counterfeit. He is a writer best introduced by the work itself.

Craig Childs in audiobooks

Atlas of a Lost World is the Childs title in our catalogue, and it plays to everything the format does well: a writer with a naturalist’s eye and an explorer’s instincts guiding the listener through wild country. Writing of this kind suits audio because it is already a voice in the wilderness – descriptive, propulsive and personal – and Childs writes from an American wilderness most UK listeners will never walk themselves, which is precisely the appeal. It is best heard on a long walk of one’s own.