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A Line Above the Sky
A Line Above the Sky
Sep 29, 2024 11:37 PM

Author:Helen Mort

A Line Above the Sky

Guardian Books to Watch 2022

Evening Standard Books to Watch 2022

Bookseller Editor's Choice

Winner of the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature

'A wonderful book - exhilarating and taut, fearless in its explorations of wildness, risk, motherhood, and the inner and outer worlds of the writer' Jon McGregor

'This book is beautiful' Emma Jane Unsworth

'Climbing gives you the illusion of being in control, just for a while, the tantalising sense of being able to stay one move ahead of death'

As a child, Helen Mort was drawn to the thrill and risk of climbing, the tension between human and rockface, and the climber's need to be hyperaware of the sensory world - to feel the texture of rock under their fingers, how their crampons bite into the ice, the subtle shifts in weather. But when she becomes a mother for the first time, she finds herself re-examining this most elemental of disciplines, and the way that we view women who put themselves in danger.

Written by one of Britain's most talented young writers, A Line Above the Sky melds memoir and nature writing to create what will surely become a classic of the genre; it asks why humans are compelled to climb and poses other, deeper questions about self, motherhood and freedom. It is a love letter to losing oneself in physicality, whether that in the risk of climbing a granite wall solo, without ropes, or the intensity of bringing a child into the world.

Reviews

A gorgeous memoir all about the great outdoors and the impulse to go to our limits

—— Evening Standard

Strong stuff, satisfying and intriguing to read

—— Sarah Moss

A candid and moving exploration of early motherhood...the writing is beautifully lyrical

—— The I

This is a book of the seen and unseen; on being alive; on being wild; on being a woman. This book is about being a woman - both seen and unseen - alive and wild - in a world that needs new words for every single part of this. And my oh my, how Mort writes those new words.

—— Caught By the River

An intimate take on motherhood and self-dissolution, and the way mountains can come to fill the voids of a life.

—— Economist

Amy Key writes with rare integrity, courage and style... A beautiful and necessary book.

—— Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent

Combines memoir with gentle manifesto, investigating our cultural obsession with coupledom... It transforms the hyper-personal into a tender, universal portrait of fashioning a life on your own terms.

—— i

Arrangements in Blue is a short read, but each page feels so full and worth savouring.

—— Guardian

Arrangements in Blue took my breath away... Even in the process of reading it for the first time I knew it would be a book I would return to again and again.

—— Sophie Mackintosh, author of Blue Ticket

A unique, intimate memoir about building a beautiful life without prioritising romantic love, or focusing on received ideas of success.

—— Guardian

I love Amy Key.

—— Lauren Laverne

Beautifully written

—— Financial Times

There is a whole life pulsing within these pages, written with both clarity and eloquence... A book to be read in astonishment and in admiration. Bewitching.

—— Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

Amy Key’s Arrangements in Blue has been comforting while going through a separation, it revises the societal position of singlehood, especially for childless women and gloriously channels the atmospheric album Blue by Joni Mitchell.

—— Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance

In Arrangements in Blue Amy Key finds a language, searing in its depth and honesty, for desire, shame, grief and, crucially, for compassion.

—— Kayo Chingonyi, A Blood Condition

Deeply moving... A study of love - platonic and romantic, lost and found - Amy's memoir demonstrates the power of music on forming a self.

—— i-D

A seriously beautiful and important work I feel lucky to have encountered and which will change how many think about love in all its iterations.

—— Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation

A gorgeous manifesto for a solo life, the power of music and friendships and a reckoning with the possibilities of love and fulfilment.

—— Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations

A beautiful memoir about a life lived without romantic love... Key seems less interested in the privileges that divide us than in the forms of love that can unite us, whatever they may be, and expand our understanding of what it means to have a life well lived.

—— Guardian

Profound and poetic, vulnerable yet brave, I devoured Amy Key's memoir about love, loss, memory and hope. An incredible writer, a stunning debut.

—— Lisa McGee, creator of Derry Girls

An exquisite book whose beauty sweetly stung me. Amy writes just like Joni sings... with ecstatic feminine power.

—— May-Lan Tan, author of Things to Make and Break

Amy Key's extraordinary Arrangements in Blue isn't merely a commentary on Joni Mitchell's Blue, but something bolder, more personal and shape-shifting... It makes itself up on its own terms. An intimate, absorbing inquiry.

—— Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World

From grief to anger to full-throttled joy, Amy Key hits every note of feeling with perfect pitch... A brave and brilliant exploration of how one woman lives both alone and alongside romance. An absolutely gorgeous work.

—— Heather Christle, author of The Crying Book

Arrangements in Blue is as bold as it is beautiful. Key is not afraid to go to the depths of her longings, but in doing so she creates something new: a space for the voice of solitude, one that is full of heart and creativity for a personal intimacy with home, friends and the self. If a book can be a loving companion, this is it.

—— Lily Dunn, author of Sins of my Father

Filled with lyrical turns of phrase, this insightful take on living solo will appeal to poets, dreamers and anyone marching to the beat of their own drum. It's a lush and moving memoir.

—— Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*

This memoir may do for you what Blue has done for her Key, putting your unexpressed feelings into beautiful words and helping you feel connected to the world.

—— Crack

Key charts women's lives with a savage delicacy.

—— Olivia Laing

'A writer of a rare and strange magic.'

—— Sarah Perry

'I love Amy Key.'

—— Lauren Laverne

'A beautiful read.'

—— Amy Liptrot

'If you read one thing this weekend make it Amy Key's astonishing essay on Joni Mitchell's Blue, love and love's absence.'

—— Sophie Mackintosh
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