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faephoenix's review
5.0
This is one of the most peaceful and delightful works of prose I’ve ever read. I live in Boston but my heart is in Scotland and the words on these pages filled me with longing and also soothed me. This has been such a difficult year but every story and experience I read in this made me feel less lonely and more awake to the beauty of what’s around me.
fmrc123's review
4.0
This was my first piece of compulsory reading for uni, overall I would rate this 3.5-4 stars!
Individually, I really like a lot of Kathleen Jamie's writing. As an aspiring writer in Scotland, it is inspiring to have access to collections like this from a diverse range of artists/genres. The collection's strength is clearly within its conviction of the ongoing climate crisis and a reflection of humanity, albeit inhumanity, so often conveyed throughout the book. Yet, overall, I wasn't entirely enthralled by the collection in its entirety, but that's more of the basis of personal taste/interests, I think!
There was some wonderful, compelling pieces in this that deserve recognition. So, I have a horrific fear of wasps... I was left astounded that one writer almost convinced me to feel sorry for the evil wee things by the end of her very touching, nostalgic memoir/essay. While Northern Raven hit very close to home and left me feeling a bit bleak at the end, much like Three Meditations -both were very beautifully articulated pieces -which had me in floods of tears by the end.
Additional special mentions go to the lovely pieces on Travellers, stags, motherhood, and wild swimming <3
Individually, I really like a lot of Kathleen Jamie's writing. As an aspiring writer in Scotland, it is inspiring to have access to collections like this from a diverse range of artists/genres. The collection's strength is clearly within its conviction of the ongoing climate crisis and a reflection of humanity, albeit inhumanity, so often conveyed throughout the book. Yet, overall, I wasn't entirely enthralled by the collection in its entirety, but that's more of the basis of personal taste/interests, I think!
There was some wonderful, compelling pieces in this that deserve recognition. So, I have a horrific fear of wasps... I was left astounded that one writer almost convinced me to feel sorry for the evil wee things by the end of her very touching, nostalgic memoir/essay. While Northern Raven hit very close to home and left me feeling a bit bleak at the end, much like Three Meditations -both were very beautifully articulated pieces -which had me in floods of tears by the end.
Additional special mentions go to the lovely pieces on Travellers, stags, motherhood, and wild swimming <3
_emilialou's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
sturgeonfish's review
emotional
reflective
4.75
absolutely fantastic, one of the best anthologies i've ever read. delightfully multimedia, with screenprints, photography, essays, and poetry. really fantastic editor for collecting all of these and spacing them out perfectly <3
i particularly enjoyed jim carruth's poetry, the wasps' byke by jacqueline bain, mòinteach leòdhais by anne campbell, and swimming away from my baby by amy liptrot. liptrot's essay especially i will tuck away in my mind for so so long... it makes me want to go swim in the cold northern great lakes and feel alive too :-)
i particularly enjoyed jim carruth's poetry, the wasps' byke by jacqueline bain, mòinteach leòdhais by anne campbell, and swimming away from my baby by amy liptrot. liptrot's essay especially i will tuck away in my mind for so so long... it makes me want to go swim in the cold northern great lakes and feel alive too :-)
nicktomjoe's review
4.0
Challenging, enlightening, this collection of essays, poems and visual art is, as Kathleen Jamie the editor asserts, from people who “do not pretend Scotland is pristine.” And with that we plunge into Red Kites and wind turbines, ravens and sexism, the rise and fall of wildlife populations, the making of lyric and music on Fair Isle. Perhaps it is over-ambitious in setting such a wide scope, but the ambition is at least laudable, and certainly intriguing.
My favourite essay reflects on a mound called Diarmaid’s Grave, on mythic pasts and semi-derelict cottages: “Stories attach themselves to ancient sites...” admitting that this could be anything from a Bronze Age cairn to a pile of stones cleared from the infield but that it was the story of Diarmaid that put the people who’d lived there “in their place” - and it is this sense of place and the dynamics of human and non-human interactions that this book so vividly explores.
My favourite essay reflects on a mound called Diarmaid’s Grave, on mythic pasts and semi-derelict cottages: “Stories attach themselves to ancient sites...” admitting that this could be anything from a Bronze Age cairn to a pile of stones cleared from the infield but that it was the story of Diarmaid that put the people who’d lived there “in their place” - and it is this sense of place and the dynamics of human and non-human interactions that this book so vividly explores.