Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21753 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Biographies are supposed to deal with people, not places, but Adam Nicolson's lyrical new book, Sea Room, is best seen as a biography. Dealing with the geology, history, natural history, sociology, and emotional resonance of the Shiants--a trio of Hebridean Islands between Skye and Harris --Nicolson's book is an all-encompassing characterisation of this remote corner of the British Isles.

Nicolson begins by describing how, inheriting the islands from his father as a young man, the islands have come to have an unusually deep meaning for him. This comes out in his painstaking reconstruction of the geological formation of the islands, of their ancient bronze and iron age settlements, and of the harsh lives of the families that lived here until large-scale economies destroyed traditional Hebridean life.

There is much sadness and anger in Nicolson's account of these changes, but also joy--joy at the richness of life in such a place, and joy that these changes have allowed Nicolson himself to experience the Shiants' beauty. The precision with which almost every inch of the islands' physical and historical identities are described is, literally, marvellous; Nicolson eschews generalities, and writes with a love of detail that is increasingly rare. Although the book is a little maudlin at times, this is only the reflection of Nicolson's own sensitivity to the place. The Shiants are anthropomorphised, becoming a character in their own right, proof that the tiniest place can reflect the passage of time. --Toby Green

Synopsis
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to own your own set of islands? Adam Nicolson's father had answered a newspaper advertisement in the 1930s. "Uninhabited islands for sale", it said. "Outer Hebrides. 600 acres. 500ft basaltic cliffs. Puffins and seals. Cabin. Apply Col. Kenneth Macdonald, Portree, Skye". These were the Shiants, three of the loneliest of the British Isles, set in a dangerous sea, with no more than a stone-built, rat-ridden bothy as accommodation, five miles or so off the coast of Lewis. They cost #1400 and for that he bought one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Adam Nicolson inherited the islands when he was 21, an astonishing gift, and they became in many ways the core of his life. This is the full story of his own experiences there, amid the dazzling concentration of birds, crowds guillemots, razorbills, great skuas and 240,000 puffins coming in every spring out of the North Atlantic to breed; the violence and danger of the surrounding seas; the songs and poems which cluster around the islands; the accounts of attemped murder, witchcraft and catastophe; and the treasured place which the Shiants still hold in the Hebridean mind.

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
What a disappointment. The book rambles dreadfully. As soon as you find an interesting bit the author then goes off at a tangent and you lose the thread. I should stress that there are some good bits and some of the turns of phrase are poetic but, in the main, I found the book dull. I was glad I got it out of the library rather than bought it. Doesn't the pic on the new paperback version look fab, though? Pity the text of the 2001 hardback only has small black and white pics in it.

Intoxicating
Three years ago, I saw 'Sea Room' in a small shop in Ullapool just before I caught the ferry to the Western Isles. Never have I been so captivated by a book. I was so taken that when i arrived in Lewis I travelled to the Isle of Harris and caught a lift with a fisherman who dropped me off on the Islands for a day. I clambered about on the rocks and imagined the place through the eyes of the author, his father and the countless generations who lived there before him.

Maybe I might suffer form emothional bias when I praise this book therefore, having soaked up the enthusiasm of Adam Nicolson. But my passion for this book is still immeasurable today nonetheless and this is why - I am no geologist, but I became fascinated by the rocks on the Shiants even before I arrived, as I was the folklore of the islands, the history, the dark fierce winters and the stories linked to every beach. I love the fact that Adam Nicolson is soaked with sentimentality and nostalgia for the place, it's infectious and moving. Reading this book turns the Shiants into a living place, bustling with seabirds, sea breeze, seals and ancient settlements, a few rocks jutting out of the churning sea. Tieing this in with their sheer isolation makes it a perfect remedy for escapism, to an almost spiritual level. But far far better to go there, and this book will urge you to make the journey.

Room with a view !
This is an intriguing book. Not a five star epic travelogue...it gets a bit too dry and academic in places...but lovers of the Scottish west coast with its unique socio/economic, cultural and natural history will find themselves well and truly sated by this near 400 page tome.
Adam Nicholson can count himself one of the luckiest people on the planet to have inherited the wild and savagely beautiful Shiant Islands.
Fortunately AN is hardly blase about his wonderful gift and has obviously burnt the midnight oil delving deep in every aspect of Shiant life.
What comes through is the sheer savage beauty of the islands. Wild in tooth and claw and the arena for some truly heartbreaking tales of love and loss.
The islands are not a place where dreams and fortunes are made. Rather they are a place of harsh reality and stuggle.
Death haunts the barren land and stormy seas surrounding the islands but in the midst of death,living breathing human beings have conspired to steal a living off the land and the sea.
Of course eventually,like gnats living on a Elephant, islanders are shaken off and the Shiants return to their lonely granduer.
It's a tribute to Adam Nicholson that he records the reality and doesn't water it down with roseate impressions.