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bookwormcat's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, and Terminal illness
sineadlgull's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Terminal illness
heini's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
4.0
"'We could just walk.'
It was a ridiculous thing to say but I said it anyway.
'Walk?'
'Yeah, just walk.'
Could Moth walk it? It was just a coastal path after all. It couldn't be that hard. And we could walk slowly, put one foot in front of the other and just follow the map. I desperately needed a map. Something to show me the way."
Book about seaside, nature, the landscapes of the South West Coast Path. About long distance walking and homelessness. About illness, age(ing), living, and not having a choice but still actively choosing.
Took some time to get used to the narrator's voice, in the end it was lovely to have had the writer as the audiobook reader too.
At times it was difficult to know who spoke, and what even was spoken out loud.
The Simon bit was hilarious.
But also sad.
Poet Simon Armitage walked a part of the path around the same time as Raynor and Moth. With different starting points and obviously different kinds of books, his journey's premise is "Along the way, he takes no money, stays with strangers, and gives poetry readings to pay his expenses." (Wikipedia)
I haven't read Armitage's book, but that summary highlights the difference of walking long distance as a poet/eccentric/bohemian or it being Cool Big Awesome Thing To Do, and the reality of the Salt Path's couple as homeless hikers who people want nothing to do with. Except when people mistake Moth for Simon.
This is not the kind of travel book with life-affirming encounters with strangers or deep spiritual awakenings. There aren't many nice people around, the towns passed by seem terrifying and the writer has been close to the nature and the "quiet" life all her life.
The hopefullness is about individuals' hope.
The "topics" of homelessness and state of nature are gross in the (UK) politics. This beautiful book highlights the unbelievable stupidity of people in power.
/Some passages I wrote down:
"Spotting didn't come. She always came to the stile for her slice of bread. Always.
As I walked around the fields for her I already knew what I was going to find. Her favorite spot under the beech trees. Her head laid out on the grass as if she was sleeping. She knew. She knew she couldn't leave her field, her place, and had simply died. Put her head on the grass, closed her eyes, and died."
"-- trying to will ourselves to take that first step. Excited. Afraid. Homeless. Fat. Dying. But at least if we make that first step we'd have somewhere to go. We'd have a purpose. And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630 mile walk."
"I stirred the tea with odd realisation that I had no work to concern myself about. No domestic problems to be solved. I had no problems at all really. Other than that we were homeless and Moth was dying."
It was a ridiculous thing to say but I said it anyway.
'Walk?'
'Yeah, just walk.'
Could Moth walk it? It was just a coastal path after all. It couldn't be that hard. And we could walk slowly, put one foot in front of the other and just follow the map. I desperately needed a map. Something to show me the way."
Book about seaside, nature, the landscapes of the South West Coast Path. About long distance walking and homelessness. About illness, age(ing), living, and not having a choice but still actively choosing.
Took some time to get used to the narrator's voice, in the end it was lovely to have had the writer as the audiobook reader too.
At times it was difficult to know who spoke, and what even was spoken out loud.
The Simon bit was hilarious.
But also sad.
Poet Simon Armitage walked a part of the path around the same time as Raynor and Moth. With different starting points and obviously different kinds of books, his journey's premise is "Along the way, he takes no money, stays with strangers, and gives poetry readings to pay his expenses." (Wikipedia)
I haven't read Armitage's book, but that summary highlights the difference of walking long distance as a poet/eccentric/bohemian or it being Cool Big Awesome Thing To Do, and the reality of the Salt Path's couple as homeless hikers who people want nothing to do with. Except when people mistake Moth for Simon.
This is not the kind of travel book with life-affirming encounters with strangers or deep spiritual awakenings. There aren't many nice people around, the towns passed by seem terrifying and the writer has been close to the nature and the "quiet" life all her life.
The hopefullness is about individuals' hope.
The "topics" of homelessness and state of nature are gross in the (UK) politics. This beautiful book highlights the unbelievable stupidity of people in power.
/Some passages I wrote down:
"Spotting didn't come. She always came to the stile for her slice of bread. Always.
As I walked around the fields for her I already knew what I was going to find. Her favorite spot under the beech trees. Her head laid out on the grass as if she was sleeping. She knew. She knew she couldn't leave her field, her place, and had simply died. Put her head on the grass, closed her eyes, and died."
"-- trying to will ourselves to take that first step. Excited. Afraid. Homeless. Fat. Dying. But at least if we make that first step we'd have somewhere to go. We'd have a purpose. And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630 mile walk."
"I stirred the tea with odd realisation that I had no work to concern myself about. No domestic problems to be solved. I had no problems at all really. Other than that we were homeless and Moth was dying."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness and Terminal illness
stephen_reads's review against another edition
fast-paced
2.0
Originally gave this 2.75 but knocked it down to 2 when I remembered the author described a holiday park as a concentration camp.
I have mixed feelings about this book.
I wish there had been more focus on the walk itself, the coast, the landscape, history, geography.
Instead, it’s a memoir written by a woman in a messy midlife crisis coping with anticipatory grief after the terminal diagnosis of her husband.
There were moments of gold in here, but I found a lot of the narrative far too vague, and the author’s thoughts are often irritating or fragmented. I found her struggle to describe herself as homeless because she didn’t want to be seen as one of *those* homeless people a little strange and self-pitying. I found the whole arc involving strangers mistaking her husband for Simon Armitage bizarre, unbelievable, and distracting. The opening chapter where she describes avoiding a court summons for 3 years then being surprised when the judge makes a ruling and refuses to allow her to drag out the case any further started a chain of frustrating events. She lacks so much self-awareness. So many sections of her describing her rotten toenail or going to the toilet in a field, I just don’t understand what this woman was trying to communicate at all.
Her battle with her husband’s medical issues turns into a strange embracing of alternative medicine, her belief that she’s found a cure for an incurable disease by walking in nature and therefore all the doctors and medical professionals are wrong was offputting. The husband is still alive at the end of the book (and that’s a good thing of course) but it just added to the strange conclusion the author had come to; hospitals = bad, nature = good. The book petered out and then just stopped because there was no real conclusion.
Also the author is downright nasty at times. Judgemental of tourists and outsiders as ruining the traditional landscape (even though she herself is a visitor to these places), judgemental of various young people she comes across for being stupid/young/in love, judgemental of addicts and rough sleepers (EVEN THOUGH SHE HERSELF IS A ROUGH SLEEPER), judgemental of other backpackers for having expensive gear or nicer tents (just came across as irritating jealousy), judgemental of a group of old women that she eavesdrops on that she sees as gossipy, she steals from small businesses because she thinks she’s entitled to (after going on a tangent about how the small local businesses struggle), and then the concentration camp comment. This woman is unlikeable and unpleasant at times. Her judgemental dark-sided streak comes out a lot.
It was an intriguing personal journey, well-written and fast-paced, but I wanted more of “the salt path” itself and less internal monologue of self-discovery with vague sweeping statements about what it means to be alive.
Also: everything is always “steaming”. They’re sweating and their clothes start steaming, it rains and they warm up by the fire and start steaming, the cows are steaming, the tea is steaming, the dew is steaming. She just loves the word steaming.
I have mixed feelings about this book.
I wish there had been more focus on the walk itself, the coast, the landscape, history, geography.
Instead, it’s a memoir written by a woman in a messy midlife crisis coping with anticipatory grief after the terminal diagnosis of her husband.
There were moments of gold in here, but I found a lot of the narrative far too vague, and the author’s thoughts are often irritating or fragmented. I found her struggle to describe herself as homeless because she didn’t want to be seen as one of *those* homeless people a little strange and self-pitying. I found the whole arc involving strangers mistaking her husband for Simon Armitage bizarre, unbelievable, and distracting. The opening chapter where she describes avoiding a court summons for 3 years then being surprised when the judge makes a ruling and refuses to allow her to drag out the case any further started a chain of frustrating events. She lacks so much self-awareness. So many sections of her describing her rotten toenail or going to the toilet in a field, I just don’t understand what this woman was trying to communicate at all.
Her battle with her husband’s medical issues turns into a strange embracing of alternative medicine, her belief that she’s found a cure for an incurable disease by walking in nature and therefore all the doctors and medical professionals are wrong was offputting. The husband is still alive at the end of the book (and that’s a good thing of course) but it just added to the strange conclusion the author had come to; hospitals = bad, nature = good. The book petered out and then just stopped because there was no real conclusion.
Also the author is downright nasty at times. Judgemental of tourists and outsiders as ruining the traditional landscape (even though she herself is a visitor to these places), judgemental of various young people she comes across for being stupid/young/in love, judgemental of addicts and rough sleepers (EVEN THOUGH SHE HERSELF IS A ROUGH SLEEPER), judgemental of other backpackers for having expensive gear or nicer tents (just came across as irritating jealousy), judgemental of a group of old women that she eavesdrops on that she sees as gossipy, she steals from small businesses because she thinks she’s entitled to (after going on a tangent about how the small local businesses struggle), and then the concentration camp comment. This woman is unlikeable and unpleasant at times. Her judgemental dark-sided streak comes out a lot.
It was an intriguing personal journey, well-written and fast-paced, but I wanted more of “the salt path” itself and less internal monologue of self-discovery with vague sweeping statements about what it means to be alive.
Also: everything is always “steaming”. They’re sweating and their clothes start steaming, it rains and they warm up by the fire and start steaming, the cows are steaming, the tea is steaming, the dew is steaming. She just loves the word steaming.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Terminal illness
Minor: Injury/Injury detail
lma34's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Grief, and Terminal illness
inkysplodge's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Grief, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Medical content
Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Vomit
saskia_ej's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness
Minor: Vomit
lennie_reads's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness and Terminal illness
mscalls's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical content, and Grief
millie_blue's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
The immersive experience of listening to Raynor Winn read this particular book is something I would recommend to all readers of The Salt Path. This poignant book offers insights into life’s fragility while weaving reflection and humour for moments of light relief.
As an aside, I have to say, Winn’s insights into homelessness have really challenged me as a reader to reserve judgement and make space for the nuance of unique experience.
Raynor Winn’s trademark narrative voice inspires me as an author, but will live on with me as a reader. What an extraordinary writer that the world has gifted to us.
As an aside, I have to say, Winn’s insights into homelessness have really challenged me as a reader to reserve judgement and make space for the nuance of unique experience.
Raynor Winn’s trademark narrative voice inspires me as an author, but will live on with me as a reader. What an extraordinary writer that the world has gifted to us.
Content Warnings
Minor: Terminal illness and Grief