Hunter-gatherers -- On Ilkley Moor -- How I learned to love the police -- As the cicada sings it -- Contrescarpe -- Byzantium -- The centre of gravity -- The gods of the Neale -- Where are the nows of yesteryear? -- The tower of silence -- Parallax -- Shadows and eclipses -- Orient express -- Two cries, two cliffs -- Backwards and digressive -- A land without shortcuts

Robinson brings us to his boyhood in Yorkshire, National Service in Malaya in the 1950s, and his years as a visual artist in Istanbul, Vienna and London. He revisits some of the scenes of his researches for the maps he made of Aran and Connemara, places that continue to throw up remarkable stores and puzzles. And he performs astonishing literary though-experiments, playing with the boundaries of the essay form, scientific enquiry and storytelling.