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Experiments on Reality
Experiments on Reality
Jan 11, 2026 11:49 AM

Author:Tim Robinson

Experiments on Reality

Long recognized as perhaps the greatest non-fiction writer at work in Ireland, for his vast, polymathic accounts of nature and culture in the Aran Islands and Connemara, Tim Robinson is also an essayist of genius whose fascinations range across the globe. In Experiments on Reality, he shines the light of his intelligence on his own life, and on some of the most fascinating questions in science and culture.

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 stories and puzzles. And he performs astonishing literary thought-experiments, playing with the boundaries of the essay form, scientific inquiry, and storytelling. Experiments on Reality is a masterpiece from one of the great minds of our time.

'One of the greatest of all landscape writers ... When the material world is brought forth for us so beautifully, with such rapt attention and illuminating insight, we are reminded of how lucky we are to be part of it' Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times

PRAISE FOR THE CONNEMARA TRILOGY:

'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English' Robert MacFarlane, Spectator

'Robinson is a marvel ... the supreme practitioner of geo-graphy, the writing of places' Fintan O'Toole, Observer Books of the Year

'One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists ... This is a book that does justice, in every sense of that phrase, to the frequently betrayed people whose stories it incarnates, and to their strange and beautiful corner of the world' Joseph O'Connor, Guardian

'A masterpiece of travel and topographical writing and a miraculous, vivid and engrossing meditation on landscape and history and the sacred mood of places' Colm Tóibín, Irish Times Books of the Year

'One of the finest of contemporary prose stylists' John Burnside, Irish Times

'He is that rarest of phenomena, a scientist and an artist, and his method is to combine scientific rigour with artistic reverie in a seamless blend that both informs and delights.' John Banville, Guardian

'Breathtaking ... the West of Ireland has found its ultimate laureate' Patricia Craig, TLS

'Dazzling ... an indubitable classic' Giles Foden, Condé Nast Traveller

Reviews

Many landscape writers have striven to give their prose the characteristics of the terrain they are describing. Few have succeeded as fully as Robinson

—— Robert Macfarlane , Guardian

One of the greatest of all landscape writers ... When the material world is brought forth for us so beautifully, with such rapt attention and illuminating insight, we are reminded of how lucky we are to be part of it

—— Fintan O'Toole , Irish Times

Robinson is a stylist of exceptional cadence, tact and ingenuity

—— Daily Telegraph

He is that rarest of phenomena, a scientist and an artist, and his method is to combine scientific rigour with artistic reverie in a seamless blend that both informs and delights

—— John Banville , Guardian

Experiments on Reality offers another side to Robinson. The abstract and algebraic thinking of his early years as both a mathematician and artist bubble back to the surface and meld with the mossy scents of Connacht and the reflections of age

—— Sunday Independent

One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists

—— Joseph O'Connor , Guardian

In this slim volume of essays, typically lyrical and measured, Robinson burgles the bank of his youth in Wharfedale and later years, including National Service in Malaysia and his time as an artist in Istanbul, Vienna and London, to map out the topography of his own thoughts and travels.

—— RTÉ Guide

Dazzling

—— Giles Foden , Condé Nast Traveller

Tim Robinson is the Proust of the western seaboard, a Ruskin of the isles

—— New Stateman

He knows this world as no one else does, and writes about it with awe and love, but also with measured grace, an artist's eye and a scientist's sensibility

—— Colm Tóibín , Sunday Business Post

Breathtaking ... the West of Ireland has found its ultimate laureate

—— Patricia Craig , TLS

Simply one of the best non-fiction prose writers currently at work

—— Fintan O'Toole , Irish Times

The Proust & Ruskin of modern place-writing, deep-mapper of Irish landscapes, visionary thinker, & human of exceptional intellectual generosity & kindness. He was an immense inspiration to & encourager of me & my work.

—— Robert Macfarlane

A brave and hard hitting read

—— Psychologies, *Book of the Month*

This exceptional debut is not for the faint-hearted… An honest account of an escalating situation and a woman’s bravery in speaking out

—— Woman

As a meditation the trauma of rape, Price’s debut is compelling and thought-provoking… the darker the narrative grows, the more brightly Price’s prose glimmers

—— Hephzibah Anderson , Mail on Sunday

What Red Was introduces an exciting new voice to fiction… Narratives are cleverly interwoven to create a richly textured whole. The writing is polished, wise and possessed of remarkable emotional intelligence. Price is just 26; I cannot wait to see what she produces next

—— Hannah Beckerman , Observer

This debut is incredibly wrought, smartly written and very, very timely… powerful

—— UK Press Syndication

Impressive

—— Patricia Nicol , Sunday Times

Alcoholism, strained friendship and trauma, as well as the power of storytelling, are all sharply expressed

—— Ella Walker , i

Feel the sharp edge of Price’s prose… capturing the horrendously common nature of rape…is Price’s greatest accomplishment

—— Rowan Hisayo Buchanan , Guardian

A scorching and original read... The story of a young girl whose life is torn apart

—— Style Summer Reading, Sunday Times

An exceptionally accomplished debut novel with strongly drawn characters. It is nuanced, true to life and it will make you burn with rage. Price has not shied away from tackling challenging material here: consent, sexual assault, substance abuse, self-harm and depression are just some of the topics that she deftly examines

—— SheerLuxe

Unputdownable... A powerful and haunting tale of friendship, privilege and abuse

—— Independent

This outstanding debut novel explore the aftermath of trauma as well as class, addiction and family dynamics

—— Hannah Beckerman , Sunday Express, *Books of the Year*

What Red Was is an impressively successful debut... if you are looking for a gripping yet thought-provoking read which will have you hooked from the first page, look no further than What Red Was

—— Libby Wright , Palantinte

A gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal

—— BookRiot

A gripping portrait of four young women in South Korea... its focus on the tangled and complicated nature of female friendship is universally familiar and fascinating

—— Refinery 29

Hypnotising... you won't want to put it down until the very last page

—— Harper's Bazaar

You'll find sisterhood at the heart of this ambitious book

—— New York Times Book Review

Tremain's extraordinary imagination has produced a powerful, unsettling novel in which two worlds and cultures collide

—— Cath Kidson Magazine

Tremain writes about this part of France so well because she has known it since childhood, and she captures a sensuality in the landscape that is both attractive and eerie... It is an enthralling book about the catastrophic disruption honesty can bring

—— Siobhan Kane , Irish Times

The novel has all the formal structure of a medieval morality tale, along with its traditional dichotomies: rus and urbe, avarice and asceticism, chastity and lust

—— Guardian

Rose Tremain's thrilling Trespass is set in an obsure valley in Southern France... To be read slowly; Tremain's writing is too exquisite to hurry

—— The Times

Timeless but rooted; tangible but otherworldly. Meticulously plotted, with the musty sadness that comes of cleaving to the past, Trespass will reward your reading time

—— Scotland on Sunday

Rose Tremain's novel begins with a scream and barely loosens its grip amid the sumptuously written pages that follow...subtly harnesses the stifling heat and dangerously feral landscape of southern France to unspool a psychologically disconcerting story of family skeletons and outsider tensions

—— Metro

Like a sinister edition of A Place In the Sun directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with the depth and subtlety that make the book far more than a mere thriller

—— You Magazine (Daily Mail)
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