Having been to the Hebrides earlier this year, I'm pretty excited about books concerning that singular landscape and history, although I thought I was well informed about both. I was wrong! Madeline Bunting, in her exquisite and evocative prose, uncovers endless hidden histories about the islands, but also revisits the widely known with fresh insights.
The book was researched over 6 years and a number of separate visits, to Jura, Iona, Staffa, Rum, Eriskay, Lewis and St Kilda. She writes of the islands history and geography and the Gaelic language with a poetic eye, but also sets their history of dispossession and migration into the larger context of British Imperial history, and the very meaning of Britishness.
A fascinating and profound book, in Robert MacFarlane territory.