Sightlines

"A sorceress of the essay form. Never exotic, down to earth, she renders the indefinable to the reader’s ear. Hold her tangible words and they’ll take you places." JOHN BERGER

Offers a fresh look at the authors native Scottish landscapes, before sailing north into iceberg-strewn seas. Her gaze swoops vertiginously too; from a countryside of cells beneath a hospital microscope, to killer whales rounding a headland, to the constellations of satellites that belie our sense of the remote.

Five years after "Findings" broke the mould of nature writing, Sort of Books presents "Sightlines". The outer world flew open like a door, and I wondered - what is it that we're just not seeing? In this greatly anticipated sequel to "Findings", prize-winning poet and renowned nature writer Kathleen Jamie takes a fresh look at her native Scottish landscapes, before sailing north into iceberg-strewn seas. Her gaze swoops vertiginously too; from a countryside of cells beneath a hospital microscope, to killer whales rounding a headland, to the constellations of satellites that belie our sense of the remote. Written with her hallmark precision and delicacy, and marked by moments in her own life, Sightlines offers a rare invitation to pause and to pay heed to our surroundings.

"A sorceress of the essay form. Never exotic, down to earth, she renders the indefinable to the reader’s ear. Hold her tangible words and they’ll take you places." JOHN BERGER

 

Sarah Irving

This is a wonderful book. I loved Kathleen Jamie's Among Muslims - her spare, clear, precise prose. This may be entirely different as to subject, but the wonderful style is instantly recognisable. Taking us from whale museums to isolated islands, Arctic shores to hospital labs, this is an unromantic, challenging and very beautiful look at nature in its most real sense, which very much includes humans, death and science as well as the wildness of the north's birds and sealife. A must-read.

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ISBN	95630866
ISBN13	9780956308665
Publisher	Sort of Books
Format	Paperback
Publication date	05/04/2012
Pages	208
Weight (grammes)	470.00
Published in	United Kingdom
Height (mm)	198
Width (mm)	129

Kathleen Jamie was born in the west of Scotland in 1962. Her poetry collections to date include The Tree House (Picador 2004), which won both the Forward prize, and the Scottish Book of the Year Award; Jizzen (Picador 1999) which won the Geoffey Faber Memorial Award and Mr and Mrs Scotland are Dead which was shortlisted for the 2003 Griffin Prize. Her first non-fiction, The Golden Peak; an account of her travels in rural Pakistan, was re-published by Sort of Books as Among Muslims in 2005. It was described as ‘utterly luminous’ (The Independent) and ‘one of the most powerful accounts by a contemporary Western writer’ (TLS). Her subsequent collection of prose essays, Findings (Sort of Books 2006) is considered a landmark in nature writing. Richard Mabey wrote of it: ‘Kathleen Jamie is a supreme listener … 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.’ Sort Of is delighted to be publishing Sightlines, the highly anticipated sequel to Findings. Kathleen Jamie is Professor of Creative Writing at Stirling University. She lives with her family in Fife.