Event Description

Under A Metal Sky, with Philip Marsden

Since they first discovered the magical properties of minerals and metals, humans have been transformed. In his latest book, Under A Metal Sky, Philip Marsden traces the dazzling achievements and dark consequences of our ability to extract what we want from the earth. His travels begin and ends in his homeland of Cornwall, one of the world’s great geological hotspots. Travelling eastwards into Europe, he explores precious seams of ideas, from science to alchemy, mysticism to ecology – and those questing souls who pursued them, like Paracelsus, the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II, Goethe, William Blake and Marie Curie.

Philip is an award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and non-fiction, including The Bronski House, The Spirit-Wrestlers, The Levelling Sea, Rising Ground and The Summer Isles. He is a previous winner of a Somerset Maugham Award and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award.

Venue: The Acorn