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The Place of Tides
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84/99
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About This Book
We are all in need of lights to follow.One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on.Back at home, Rebanks couldn't stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island.This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, building little wooden huts that will protect the ducks come spring; to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for the woman to gather, like feathered gold.Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not at all what he had previously thought. As the weeks pass, what began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge and forgiveness.
Reviews
"The perhaps surprising answer is: we are ..."
"It is fair to say that The Place of Tides covers a niche subject, but Rebanks's modest and assured narrative paints a picture of a wondrous world."
"Her example, Rebanks says, is profound."
"The challenges are many, the uncertainties considerable, and yet as Anna's strength grows with each passing day, it's Rebanks, too, who discovers himself shedding ill-fitting skins."
"The Place of Tides washes over readers gently, refreshing us with its moving portrait of a quietly purposeful way of life."
"A tender, diaristic, inevitably elegiac account of his apprenticeship with Anna and her friend Ingrid ..."
"All this stillness could be deadening in lesser hands, but Rebanks carries the reader through with his humor and elegant prose ..."
"A quiet memoir of profound change ..."
"A strange, enchanting book ..."
"Rebanks's telling of the skilled work and cultural history that he learns from Anna Måsøy is all this otherwise enlightening book needs."
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