You may have noticed that the eider ducks are back in Pittenweem and soon we will see the females with their creches of ducklings.
This book, The Place of Tides, tells the story of women in a remote part of Norway who live with breeding eider ducks in order to collect the down from discarded nests. Now that may not seem much like a topic that would hold a reader’s attention for a whole book, but James Rebanks does that in a gentle, extraordinary way.
Rebanks is an environmentalist, who as part of his work was sent to Norway to do research. In a remote part he meets Anna, one of the women who collects down. He was fascinated by her way of life and seven years later he returned to spend a season with her on an extremely remote island, tending to the eider ducks.
This book is about that season in a unique and ancient landscape. Life is pared away to absolute essentials with few distractions. It is a deceptively simple, uplifting story that is all the more welcome in these unsettling times. I loved reading it and I hope you do too.
[We have a copy of The Place of Tides in the library]
