A few years ago, I stumbled across Kathleen Jamie's earlier essay collection (I think Bill Manhire had reviewed it, or mentioned it somewhere) which I very much enjoyed, so I was naturally keen to read her new book with a similar theme to the last. Jamie is a poet, but as an essayist her concerns are landscape and wildlife, especially birds and whales, and our place in the world. She primarily writes about Scotland, especially the coast and islands, but her concerns are universal, and her writing beautiful. Her three part essay in this book about her visit to St Kilda off the Scottish west coast, and Rona to the north, are standout pieces, exquisite travel/nature writing. In the past I've read a lot of American writing in this genre, and I'm very pleased to see the British respond, with terrific books appearing from Sara Maitland and Robert MacFarlane recently as well. Travel writing as a genre seems to have all but disappeared, but I'd recommend these writers as providing many of the same satisfactions: an evocation of place, an internal journey, fantastic writing, and a way into thinking about our place in the world.