This book has won acclaim and prizes since it was released a couple of years ago, and it's been recommended to me on numerous occasions, so I'm coming to it rather late.

It's a subject that fascinates me: places which have been abandoned through destruction or dereliction - ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands - and what happens to them when they are reclaimed by nature. 

The author visits a huge variety of locations all over the world and reports both on their past and how she sees them today.

From the contamination of Chernobyl to an uninhabited Scottish island, houses falling down in Detroit and the volcanic Caribbean. 

She asks what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?

Some of the accounts are more harrowing than others, but some present astonishing possibilities and opportunities for environmental recovery.

It's an intriguing book that I had to process in small doses, but I'm sure to return to it as these locations are sure to feature in my reading of fact and fiction going forward.