Walking in Ruins

"Ruins can grasp out imagination and tantalise us with thoughts of lost buildings, lost lives ... Nicholson takes us on walks not only to iconic sites - Stonehenge and Alcatraz among them - but also to lesser-known and out-of-the-way places, such as a ruined zoo on the edge of Hollywood and an abandoned council estate in Sheffield. There are urban ruins and desert ruins, industrial and architectural ruins, even defence-of-the-realm ruins to be explored. And as he explores he traces the marks ruins have left in the imaginations of other writers and artists, then ponders what exactly makes a ruin and why ruins are so important to us.