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The Giant on the Skyline

On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go

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The Giant on the Skyline

By: Clover Stroud
Narrated by: Clover Stroud
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About this listen

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

 Parenting & Families Relationships Social Sciences Marriage

Critic 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)
Stroud writes gloriously… 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 … In the Giant on the Skyline, Stroud has produced something exceptional: a mystical meditatation on what home means and what constitutes belonging … It is magical and haunting and profoundly moving. Stroud is exceptionally evocative when writing about nature and family … even grungy Wantage with its Greggs and charity shops sounds alluring the way Stroud describes it. (Flora Watkins)
Stroud’s writing is assured, visceral, sexy as well as sensuous, richly coloured in every way, and often freshly poetic, whether dealing with a toddler’s tears over the broccoli touching the gravy, or with death and loss. She paints her way through the book with striking word pictures … Orgasmic time, druids, gentle giants… The reader swirls like a leaf on a stream, coming out amazed by the richness – and unknownness – of other people’s lives. (Philippa Stockley)
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 captures raw emotion, capturing themes of adventure, grief and the healing power of nature. Her latest book is a heartfelt meditation on what makes a home.
Clover Stroud is expert at bringing her reader right to the heart of her longing. Her writing is intimate and warm, honest and generous. A true memoirist, she looks to people and place as her canvas, in this case the psychic and physical hold of the landscape and what we call home. The Giant on the Skyline is timeless and yet firmly rooted in time, magical and mysterious and yet earthy and sensual. It is full of personality, humour and heart and I did not want it to end. (Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father)
In this new giant of a book, perhaps Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful, Clover Stroud confronts the wrench from a place that might define her and shows how the resounding power of love tethers the soul. (Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake)
I can’t remember the last time I underlined so much and folded down so many pages in a book the way I have with this. What a wonderful, wise, magical book. I’ve loved all Clover Stroud’s books but The Giant on the Skyline is really quite incredible. (Rachael Lucas, author of The Cottage on the Shore)
All stars
Most relevant
This book has been a giant hug for me. Clover’s journey from the milky white chalk land of her beloved England to the US iron oxide tinted clay brick walls of her new temporary nest. Every chapter was an utter joy.
I can’t express how much I adore this piece of work. I too have the love of my home place running in my vains. I ache for the landscape of my childhood. Thank you Clover so much for your writings from your inner voice. 💚

A giant hug

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I love Clover’s writing and the way that she makes connections with people, places and the landscapes that she inhabits. She is never frightened of going to places that are painful and difficult in her quest to understand and make sense of life.

Brave and Honest

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I love Clover Strouds’ books. This one about home was very interesting. Her descriptions, particularly of the natural world and her horses are magical and she’s a brilliant narrator. I really enjoyed this and could listen to her all day. Thank you Clover Stroud 💖

Beautiful and mesmerising

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Lyrically written and so resonant of a landscape I know the magic of and love, alongside the concept of what home is. Clover Stroud shares such profound honesty with her reader that you feel connected to her and the raw power of her emotions. There is a clear thread of narrative throughout which kept me listening and deeply involved. A wonderful memoir.

Real, raw and a moving story, in so many ways!

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Beautifully written from the heart. A touching memoir of the process of understanding home, whether place, people or landscape. Absolutely captivating, soothing, challenging and honest. I loved it.

So beautifully written and read.

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