Author:Tamsin Calidas
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'Memoir of the year' - Vogue
'A wondrous, sensuous memoir of salt-stung survival . . . clear-eyed and poetic prose' Sunday Times
'A fascinating memoir' - Daily Mail
When Tamsin Calidas first arrives on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides, it feels like coming home. Disenchanted by London, she and her husband left the city and high-flying careers to move the 500 miles north, despite having absolutely no experience of crofting, or of island life. It was idyllic, for a while. But as the months wear on, the children she'd longed for fail to materialise, and her marriage breaks down, Tamsin finds herself in ever-increasing isolation.
Injured, ill, without money or friend she is pared right back, stripped to becoming simply a raw element of the often harsh landscape. But with that immersion in her surroundings comes the possibility of rebirth and renewal. Tamsin begins the slow journey back from the brink.
Startling, raw and extremely moving, I Am An Island is a story about the incredible ability of the natural world to provide when everything else has fallen away - a stunning book about solitude, friendship, resilience and self-discovery.
A wondrous, sensuous memoir of salt-stung survival… clear-eyed and poetic prose. Over and above everything else, I Am an Island is a hymn to the wild, full of fine observation of the natural world. A message that rings true for these testing times.
—— The Sunday TimesCalidas is a supple, sensuous writer - deeply empathetic... Her account is shot through with moments of intense brightness.
—— GuardianThis is a startling book, a vivid and terrifying reminder of how an island can seduce, madden - and ultimately sustain those brave enough to endure its confines.
—— Madeleine Bunting, author of Love of CountryAn extraordinary book, a wild and redemptive account of reaching rock bottom and swimming back into the light. I’m awed by Tamsin's courage, her resilience and huge heart. Her island will stay with me for a very long time.
—— Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City and To the RiverThe best book I have read in more than a decade. Each page is poetry. Tamsin's story is both heartbreaking and inspiring but ultimately about how the power of nature can heal. The perfect memoir for us all right now. Absolutely stunning. What an incredible woman.
—— Susannah ConstantineThe memoir of the year...a lyrical paean to the wild beauty of the Hebrides.
—— VogueAn island tale like no other. An unforgettably moving and compulsive read, steeped in anguish and beauty. A book that is unafraid to stare deep into the abyss, and still find a way forward. The story of a woman completely broken by life, and her fifteen-year struggle to find the inner strength to restore herself, through sheer determination, and by immersing herself in solitude.
—— Neil Ansell, author of Deep Country and Deer IslandCompletely astonishing. Using language of shimmering beauty, Tamsin Calidas describes the unravelling of a relationship with such exquisitely small stitches that the eventual thread-baring of her physical and emotional safety, her sense of identity and purpose, blows in like a cold slap of Hebridean wind. A Hardyesque, stripped back connection to the landscape emerges. And yet only with the fragmentation of everything that matters is the fragility of life transcended and restored by the triumphant pull of a determination to survive.
—— Juliet NicolsonGripping...Tough yet compulsive reading, carried by crisp, vivid prose.
—— Amy Liptrot, author of The OutrunRaw, painful, storm-battered writing. Here's what it means to be truly isolated.
—— Raynor WinnA meditative breath of fresh air. This book will fill your lungs, sting your eyes and catch in your throat. Soaring prose like birdsong over the harsh lands that compelled Tamsin Calidas to breathe deep.
—— Ruth Fitzmaurice, author of I Found My TribeAn extraordinary book of limitless resilience, Calidas' leaping prose is a love song to the natural world. What she achieves with an open heart and a will of iron is nothing short of remarkable.
—— Sarah Langford, author of In Your DefenceSo raw, so honest, so intense. I didn't want this book to end.
—— Sigri Sandberg, author of An Ode to DarknessCombining intensely beautiful nature writing with the excavation of deep emotion, this brave, startling book examines what it really means to lose yourself in nature, and in doing so find a completely new version of yourself, too. A powerful, unsettling but ultimately redemptive account of one woman’s deep communion with the natural world.
—— Clover Stroud, author of My Wild and Sleepless NightsCalidas is a supple, sensuous writer - deeply empathic... Her account is shot through with moments of intense brightness.
—— GuardianAny preconceptions you may entertain about 'a Londoner, tiring of the city, moves to a Scottish Island' will be smashed in the first chapter of Tamsin Calidas' astonishing, raw and clear-eyed book. Tamsin charts how she comes to terms with loss, loneliness, hardship and prejudice through immersing herself fully in her island habitat. I am an Island is a powerful, affecting book; glittering and visceral, Tamsin's clear-voiced self-reliance becomes a storm-force of nature in itself.
—— Nicola Chester, Nature Writer, RSPB Columnist and Guardian Country DiaristA beautiful book...I urge you to seek it out.
—— Jane GarveyA beautifully written, emotionally intense memoir
—— Sunday ExpressThe island is a metaphor for anyone who has ever been alone... It is about what happens when everything you are used to falls away, which is something we are all experiencing at the moment.
—— Daily MailAn utterly engrossing read.
—— SagaTamsin Calidas’s tale of moving to a remote Scottish croft has become a lockdown must-read… a glittering (and controversial) account.
—— MetroThe trials and triumphs of isolated living are laid bare in this often shatteringly honest read.
—— Reader's DigestAs in the case of Tara Westover’s Educated, it is impossible not to marvel at all the author has been through.
—— TLSA mesmeric tale of emotional resilience and the recuperative powers of the natural world... Essential reading.
—— The Evening StandardThe memoir of the year ... groundbreaking.
—— VogueA brave, beautiful and unforgettable book - a book that overflows with love. Tamsin writes exquisitely about life, love, pain, death and rebirth and the healing power of nature. Great joy has flowed into my life from reading this. It touched me so deeply - I was moved to tears - and I could not put it down. I know it will help and greatly inspire others' lives. A sea of hands will reach for I Am An Island, carrying it like a great flock of birds, across the world. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
—— Elena Bonham CarterCalidas is adept at illustrating her emotional and mental state throughout her experiences, effectively using the Scottish landscape as a means to emphasise her plights and successes. This is an extremely honest account of human survival in the face of unimaginable pain and loss. So poignant and stark...Never as relevant as it is now, Calidas' battle with isolation and loneliness is both moving and inspiring. The desire for human contact and interaction is soothed by a deep kinship with nature, which remains steadfast no matter what.
—— Scottish FieldA wonderful memoir
—— The MalestromPowerfully observed
—— BBC Countryfile MagazineI was profoundly moved by I am an Island - the beauty, emotion, power and poetry of its words. As subtle as it is forceful, this is a complex and poetic account of a life lived raw. A skilful, finespun memoir which grabs you by the throat; clutches your heart and tenderly caresses your cheek in one beguiling movement. I urge you to read it.
—— Ulrika JonssonThis novel is enchanting, but not in some safe, fairy-tale sense. Charlotte McConaghy has harnessed the rough magic that sears our souls. I recommend The Last Migration with my whole heart
—— Geraldine Brooks, Author of MarchPowerful...Vibrant...Unique... If worry is the staple emotion that most climate fiction evokes in its readers, The Last Migration - the novelistic equivalent of an energizing cold plunge - flutters off into more expansive territory
—— Los Angeles TimesHow far do we have to go to escape our pasts and find ourselves? Charlotte McConaghy’s luminous, brilliant novel, set in a future when wildlife is rapidly becoming extinct, is indeed about loss—but what makes it miraculous is that it is also about both the glimpses of hope and the shattering persistence of love, if we are only brave enough to acknowledge them. Written in prose as gorgeous as the crystalline beauty of the Arctic, The Last Migration is deeply moving, haunting, and, yes, important
—— Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of YouA lovely, haunting novel about a troubled woman’s quest to follow the last surviving Arctic terns on their southerly migration. As she tries to make peace with the ghosts of her painful past, she must choose whether she herself wants – or deserves – to survive, in spite of everything she, and all humans, have destroyed and lost
—— Ceridwen Dovey, author of In the Garden of the FugitivesThis book is a powerful - and entertaining - corrective to the idea that the only hopes that matter on this planet are those of our own species.
—— Tim Adams , GuardianMacdonald has a wonderful gift for exploring the intersection between nature and our experience of it, in writing that is both lyrical and impassioned.
—— Hannah Beckerman , ObserverOne of the most beautiful memoirs I've ever read. This story will say with you long after you put the book down
—— Emma GannonI just turned the last page (reluctantly!). A bold, often brutal exploration of memory, grief and love. Full of hope and heart. I can't recommend it enough
—— Terri White, author of Coming UndoneA brave, brilliant book that is both beautiful and important. Read it then buy it for all your friends
—— Hello!Gavanndra's memoir The Consequences of Love is absolutely beautiful. It's compelling, heartbreaking, sweet, honest, fascination. I recommend it HIGHLY. I absolutely LOVED it.
—— Marian KeyesThis stunning exploration of grief is so well written and profoundly moving
—— Good HousekeepingAn elegant study of grief and memory
—— GuardianHodge pours heartbreak and love into the pages of a book that never pretends to know the answers, and is all the better for it
—— Sunday TimesAn eye-opening snapshot of the fashion world in '90s London
—— Vogue UK
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