Simply....a great read..

16/8/2013

Isn't it exciting when you find a new-to-you author and you know that he/she is going to be a favourite for ever.

I was attracted by the cover in a bookshop while on holiday, read a page or two, and bought it on impulse. Happy find!

I know I am going to read and re-read this book of essays, lend it, recommend it, seek out other things she has written....but all in good time. This is not a book to be hurried. I read one essay, think about it for a day, maybe two, then read the next, and I am saving 'Three Ways of Looking at St Kilda' for when I am in Harris in September (as near as I will probably get to St Kilda).

Beautiful writing by a wonderful storyteller who takes you to wonderful places.

Have you read this, or Findings?

6 Comments

cath

17/8/2013 12:54:16 am

Very good impulse!
Findings is on my shelf and after reading the first essay (Darkness and Light) I decided I would save it for rainy autumn days. Something already to look forward to.
Read twice with two poems a day since I bought it earlier this year, is Waterlight, that's a selection of her poetry. So good.
I have more on my wishlist as I'd like to read all her work from the first one onwards.

Here is one for you:

Lochan

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me. I mean

to find among the thousands
scattered in that land

a certain quiet lochan
where water lilies rise

like small fat moons,
and tied among the reeds,

underneath a rowan,
a white boat waits.

Love at first sight for me.

Freda

17/8/2013 08:40:52 am

Thank you so much for the beautiful poem. I wonder how I have missed this author until now! But so glad to have found her, and to know you love her work too.

cath

18/8/2013 12:01:01 am

I read somewhere Kathleen Jamie teaches Creative Writing at Sterling University, how I wish that was a bit closer to my home.

Liz

17/8/2013 01:47:46 am

What a treat you have to look forward to. Not just her poems, but she did an audio diary type series for Radio 4 a while back, that you might still be able to hear. I'll see if I can track it down for you.

Freda

17/8/2013 08:43:08 am

Like Cath I am going to want to read and hear everything she has written - would love to hear the Radio 4 series..

Liz

18/8/2013 02:35:56 am

Very disappointing results on iPlayer - only a recent woman's hour piece still playable, but if you persevere you might get a transcript of earlier stuff - R3 NigthWaves, etc. Just put her name in the Search facility.

Simply....a great read..

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