Reviews
"Nicolson's chronicle is a fine book. Readers . . . will be duly awed by his delicately layered story." -- Erica Sanders, The New York Times Book Review "No other book has given me as rich a sense of what makes a small island so revelatory of our life on Earth." -- London Review of Books "A lovely biography of a place: the Shiants, in the Hebrides, are an island threesome of grass, wind, and birds that have had a long human presence and are sometimes the home of travel and environmental writer Nicolson . . . Rich with history and curiosity." -- Kirkus Reviews "An adventure story with Hemingway highs and is also unselfconscious, wonderfully idiosyncratic, and, above all, beautifully written." -- Literary Review, Nicolson's chronicle is a fine book. Readers . . . will be duly awed by his delicately layered story., Nicolson's book is an adventure story with Hemingway highs and is also unselfconscious, wonderfully idiosyncratic, and, above all, beautifully written. There are terrifying sea journeys, discoveries of Bronze-Age gold, eighth-century legends, and recalcitrant laird-hating locals, all keenly observed and researched through an intensely personal lens. And I mean personal., "Extraordinarily outward-looking . . . intensely written and memorable." - Noel Malcolm, The Sunday Telegraph "A great part of the urgency and vividness of Nicolson's writing in this book derives from his questioning of his own paper title to these islands and his desire to win them legitimately . . . He conjures the numinous spirit of the place in long, lyric stretches and weaves a vivid tapestry of people and events." - Emma Crichton-Miller, Evening Standard "An adventure story with Hemingway highs and is also unselfconscious, wonderfully idiosyncratic, and, above all, beautifully written. There are terrifying sea journeys, discoveries of Bronze-Age gold, eighth-century legends, and recalcitrant laird-hating locals, all keenly observed and researched through an intensely personal lens. And I mean personal." - George Greig, Literary Review
