West: Tales of the Lost Lands by Martin Wall

Part personal memoir, part cultural history, West is a compendium of `tales', telling the story of a unique geographical and literary landscape - the western Midlands of England. It is a magpie's nest, a melange of anecdotes, folk legends, ghost stories and fairy tales. But more than this, it is a record of a land and its people, told over 2,000 years of history - a land that birthed both industrial and cultural revolutions. A native of the area, Martin Wall takes us on a search for lost time in the Lost Lands of the west, charting the liminal energies which have so influenced our literature - and himself. Shamelessly nostalgic, sometimes tender, sometimes brutal, these tales invite us to immerse ourselves in the past, present and future, to become `unstuck in time'. How were the lands `lost'? The author laments the decline and fall of a succession of cultures, from the Celtic principality of Pengwern and the mighty kingdom of Mercia to the end of heavy industry in the late twentieth century. With a thoughtful foreword by Robert Plant, West takes history to a new imaginative edge.
Binding: Paperback / softback