This book examines what it means to lose a place forever and why we return, and keep on returning, to the places that remain in our memories.

Returning to Nothing considers lost countries, towns, suburbs and homes: Darwin after Cyclone Tracy, the flooding of the town of Adaminaby in New South Wales, the inundation of Lake Pedder in Tasmania, bushfire at Macedon in Victoria, migration from other countries, the clearing of neighbourhoods for freeways and the everyday circumstances which force people from their land.

The memories and powerful attachments to places of significance, and the struggles to save them, fill the pages of this moving book.