Jo’s new book captures a lifelong passion for flint in print

Regular website visitors will undoubtedly recognise the name Jo Bourne – it has featured in many, many photograph captions over the years.

And that name now graces the cover of a new book on flint to be published next week.

A self-confessed “flint addict”, anyone who has worked at the Ness will know of Jo’s love of the biogenic rock. She has channeled that passion into Flint: A Lithic Love Letter – a lyrical history of a material that has been a key part of human development for three-million years.

Jo grew up in Kent, surrounded by flint.

It was used for garden walls, to edge drives and weight dustbin lids, as well as to build pubs, churches, Roman villas and castles. For centuries it was the only building stone available in the area.

In her deeply personal account, Jo traces flint’s geological, architectural and social history and invites the reader to roam with her in search of it on her beloved North Downs.

Fusing science, poetry, history and a profound love of landscape, the result is a heartfelt, thoroughly persuasive tribute to the stone she calls “an art project of the great divine”.

Jo has combined a career in publishing with archaeological fieldwork. As well as her time at the Ness of Brodgar, she has excavated in Dalmatia and Libya.

Her book Jake’s Bones, written with the young bone collector Jake McGowan-Lowe, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize.

She is also the author of The Maps Book, published by Lonely Planet Kids in 2023, which was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Children’s Travel Book of the Year.

Published by Eye Books, Flint: A Lithic Love Letter is due out on September 19, 2024, and available in hardback (ISBN: 9781785634086), priced £14.99.

“If you love walking the English countryside, you will adore this vivid, personal, upbeat book.”
Maggie Gee

“This quirky, enchanting ramble around the flintscapes of the south-east England tells the nigh-mystical story of a stone that has, with quiet majesty, borne witness to all human history.”
Jasper Rees, Daily Telegraph

“Bourne’s enchanting narrative and personal anecdotes bring to life the magic and enduring significance of a stone that has shaped human civilisation for millennia.”
Alastair Humphreys

“The most readable book on the earth sciences that I have met in 2024. Unusual, entertaining and informative, I shall keep ‘Flint’ on the shelf so that I can read it again when I need to be uplifted and inspired.”
Geology Today

“A unique, well-informed and enjoyable read about this wondrous material.”
Nick Card, director of the Ness of Brodgar