I Am An Island

Author Tamsin Calidas
Narrator Tamsin Calidas
Publisher Transworld
Publish Date 1 January 1970
Run Time 10 hours and 6 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Biography and non-fiction prose, Memoirs, Nature and the natural world: general interest, The countryside, country life: general interest, Travel and holiday, Travel writing.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Completely astonishing…the fragility of life transcended and restored by the triumphant pull of a determination to survive' - Juliet Nicolson

When Tamsin Calidas first arrives on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides, it feels like coming home. Disenchanted by London, she and her husband left the city and high-flying careers to move the 500 miles north, despite having absolutely no experience of crofting, or of island life. It was idyllic, for a while. But as the months wear on, the children she'd longed for fail to materialise, and her marriage breaks down, Tamsin finds herself in ever-increasing isolation.

Injured, ill, without money or friend she is pared right back, stripped to becoming simply a raw element of the often harsh landscape. But with that immersion in her surroundings comes the possibility of rebirth and renewal. Tamsin begins the slow journey back from the brink.

Startling, raw and extremely moving, I Am An Island is a story about the incredible ability of the natural world to provide when everything else has fallen away - a stunning book about solitude, friendship, resilience and self-discovery.

©Tamsin Calidas 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

A wondrous, sensuous memoir of salt-stung survival… clear-eyed and poetic prose. Over and above everything else, I Am an Island is a hymn to the wild, full of fine observation of the natural world. A message that rings true for these testing times.

The Sunday Times

Calidas is a supple, sensuous writer – deeply empathetic… Her account is shot through with moments of intense brightness.

Guardian

This is a startling book, a vivid and terrifying reminder of how an island can seduce, madden – and ultimately sustain those brave enough to endure its confines.

Madeleine Bunting, author of Love of Country

An extraordinary book, a wild and redemptive account of reaching rock bottom and swimming back into the light. I’m awed by Tamsin’s courage, her resilience and huge heart. Her island will stay with me for a very long time.

Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City and To the River

The best book I have read in more than a decade. Each page is poetry. Tamsin’s story is both heartbreaking and inspiring but ultimately about how the power of nature can heal. The perfect memoir for us all right now. Absolutely stunning. What an incredible woman.

Susannah Constantine

The memoir of the year…a lyrical paean to the wild beauty of the Hebrides.

Vogue

An island tale like no other. An unforgettably moving and compulsive read, steeped in anguish and beauty. A book that is unafraid to stare deep into the abyss, and still find a way forward. The story of a woman completely broken by life, and her fifteen-year struggle to find the inner strength to restore herself, through sheer determination, and by immersing herself in solitude.

Neil Ansell, author of Deep Country and Deer Island

Completely astonishing. Using language of shimmering beauty, Tamsin Calidas describes the unravelling of a relationship with such exquisitely small stitches that the eventual thread-baring of her physical and emotional safety, her sense of identity and purpose, blows in like a cold slap of Hebridean wind. A Hardyesque, stripped back connection to the landscape emerges. And yet only with the fragmentation of everything that matters is the fragility of life transcended and restored by the triumphant pull of a determination to survive.

Juliet Nicolson

Gripping…Tough yet compulsive reading, carried by crisp, vivid prose.

Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun

Raw, painful, storm-battered writing. Here’s what it means to be truly isolated.

Raynor Winn

User Reviews

Book 1.0

Narration 1.0

1.0

Sorry, not for me. I was really looking forward to this book but I didn't enjoy it. At times it almost felt like a history historical book. There was more description of the scenery and agriculture than the actual couple themselves. I didn't know the characters and their relationship with one another. I think for other people this would be a great book but for myself I missed the detail of the people, relationships, emotions etc.

Eviecatmum 08/04/2023

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