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Findings
KATHLEEN
JAMIE
‘This
is as close as writing gets to a conversation with the
natural world.’
Richard
Mabey, author of Flora Britannica
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Between
the laundry and the fetching kids from school, that’s how
birds enter my life. I listen. During a lull in the traffic: oyster-catchers;
in the school-playground, sparrows.
It’s
surprising what you can find by simply stepping out to look. Award-winning
poet Kathleen Jamie has an eye and an ease with the nature and
landscapes of Scotland as well as an incisive sense of our domestic
realities. In Findings she draws together these themes to describe
travels like no other contemporary writer.
Whether
she is following the call of a peregrine in the hills above her
home in Fife, sailing into a dark winter solstice on the Orkney
islands, or pacing around the carcass of a whale on a rain-swept
Hebridean beach, she creates a subtle and modern narrative, peculiarly
alive to her connections and surroundings.
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Award-winning
poet, Kathleen Jamie was born in the west of Scotland in 1962.
Her first travel book, Among Muslims (also published by Sort Of
Books), was described as ‘utterly luminous’
(The Independent) and ‘one of the most powerful accounts
by a contemporary Western writer’ (TLS).
Her
latest poetry collection, The Tree House (Picador), won the 2004
Forward prize.
A
part-time lecturer in Creative Writing at St Andrews University,
Kathleen Jamie lives with her family in Fife.
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A
groundbreaking book based in Scotland
that merges the very best of travel and
nature writing.
Beautifully packaged original paperback with flaps
and images.
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Pricing
at £6.99 allows inclusion in summer paperback promotions.
Major PR campaign, including
BBC R4 Start the Week; national press review and feature coverage.
Specialist coverage in Rambler, RSPB and heritage outlets. |
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Once,
on a flawless sandy beach in Donegal, I found five silver fishes,
freshly abandoned by a wave, glittering and bright
as knives presented in a canteen.
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‘Prose
essays of a sharpness of looking, and directness of thought, that
will make them last a long time; some of the best writing out
of rural Scotland for many decades. Jamie observes the extraordinary,
alien natural world around her with a frank uncluttered candour,
while nevertheless standing rooted in the middle of modern family
life.’
Andrew Marr, writer and broadcaster.
‘Kathleen
Jamie is a supreme listener. Her attention – to the beckoning
calls of the peregrines that nest near her house, to the brimful
darkness in the neolithic chambers at Maes Howe, to the mute appeals
of embryo skeletons in a medical museum – has a directness
that borders on the heroic. And in the quietness of her listening,
you hear her own voice: clear, subtle, respectful, and so unquenchably
curious that it makes the world anew. This is as close as writing
gets to a conversation with the natural world.’
Richard Mabey, author of Flora Britannica
From
the moment you meet Kathleen Jamie's words, you meet a passion
for the environment, not as an abstract quality but as what surrounds
her...the small birds in the garden, the landscapes of her native
Scotland, even ordinary familiar domestic cares are illuminated
with curiosity, affection, knowledge and a deep concern.’
Rosalind Coward, writer and journalist.
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For
details of rights available please email
Natania
Jansz
at Sort Of
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| Pub
date June 2005 |
| ISBN
0-9542217-4-5 |
| Price
£6.99 |
| Format
B format Paperback with flaps |
| Extent
208 pages |
| Illustrations
b/w chapter dividers |
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