I would like to thank the many friends and relations who have come to the Shiants with me over the years, especially Kate and Charlie Boxer, Pots and Ivan Samarine, Montagu and Sarah Don, Patrick Holden and Becky Hiscock; also Andrew Palmer and Will Anderson, who did their utmost to get there but were prevented by storms.
This book is a long thank-you to my father, without whose appetite in 1937 for ‘remoteness, isolation, grandeur’ it would not have been written. Unmentioned in these pages, but constant, is my deep debt, thanks and love to Sarah Raven.
Praise
‘Palpably exciting narrative – lyrical, compelling, earthy, always readable, and often surprising. Nicolson’s book is an adventure story with Hemingway highs and is also unselfconscious, wonderfully idiosyncratic, and, above all, beautifully written.’
GEORDIE GREIG, Literary Review
‘A passionate account of the Shiants with a lyricism that brings the islands to life.
CHRISTOPHER BLAND, Sunday Telegraph
‘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
‘A wise, witty, enlightening, enchanting book’
ALAN GURNEY, Times Literary Supplement
‘A fine storyteller’
COLE MORETON, Independent on Sunday
‘Beautifully written’
BRIAN CASE, Time Out
‘Enthralling throughout’
SIMON HALL, Independent
‘A passionate evocation of the Shiants which catches you up in its intelligence as well as its enthusiasm, and fills you with homesickness for a place you’ve never been to. Nicolson writes so well, with such modesty and deep feeling, that the book fairly sings in your hands.’
WILL COHU, Daily Telegraph
About the Publisher
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