Regional Book, The

David Matless

“Force yourself to see more flatly.”—Georges Perec, Species of Spaces

The Regional Book examines, in descriptions of forty-four locations, the Broads’ varied constitution: nature reserves, towns, riversides, marshes, seasides, waterways broad and narrow, broads landlocked and connected. The writing rubs against conventional forms of attention and styles of seeing, creating inventories that encompass fact, digression, memory and reverie. If Broadland is a flat landscape, with few rises, it remains possible to see more flatly.