Snow geese spend their summers in the Canadian Arctic, on the tundra. Each autumn they migrate south, to Delaware, California and the Gulf of Mexico. In the spring, they fly north again. William Fiennes decided to go with them and to write about his travels. What he produced turned out to be about very much more than geese. A blend of autobiography and reportage, its subject was also homecoming: the birds on their long journeys home, the grace of homecomings, the strange gravity that home exerts. The arc of Fiennes' extraordinary physical adventure formed the backbone for meditations on philosophy, natural science and personal memoir. The book thrums with ideas, with stories and anecdotes, with humankind as well as wild fowl, with the funny and observant insights of an assured and highly entertaining writer.

'With this beautiful, haunting debut Fiennes joins that small, very special band of writer-explorers - Emerson and Thoreau, Annie Dilard and Bruce Chatwin - who give us another pair of eyes: he has renewed the variety and wonder of the world' - Marina Warner.

'Fiennes is a very fine writer and this book is pure delight' - Peter Carey, winner of the Booker Prize 2001.