The Place Of Tides

Humane, beautifully paced, gentle, and strangely compelling, The Place of Tides feels like, not only a modern classic, but one we very much need right now - George Saunders

A magnificent book -- wonderfully unlike any other. The Place of Tides is big-hearted and transporting, a quietly gripping reckoning with self-sufficiency and interdependence, with the lives that make us and the lives that we make. I didn’t want it to end, and I can’t wait to reread it - Philip Gourevitch

James Rebanks has done a miraculous thing. He takes the reader with him to a stark, remote island on the strangest mission in the toughest circumstances and makes you feel like you’re coming home. A profound, transformative, uplifting story - Isabella Tree

The Place of Tides is a magical book, at once a lament for a world in danger of disappearing, and a celebration of an indomitable spirit determined to preserve it. James Rebanks has written a quiet yet ringing masterpiece. - John Banville

The Place of Tides is terrific – so honest and strange. It’s somehow about eider ducks, middle age, one woman’s breathtaking skill and determination, the collapse of the natural order and everything in between. I think it’s Rebanks’ best book yet - Sam Knight

The Place of Tides is a captivating portrait of a younger man learning from an older woman, of the great buzzing jungle of the modern world versus the silent wisdom of old ways, of paying attention to your heart instead of the internet, of finding out how to go your own way. It is a revelation about another way of living, long past, but now revived. But what really strikes is the emotional profundity. Rebanks lays himself open, as a man in need of redemption, who finds solace in the remotest of places, and with the most unexpected of people: a Scandinavian duck woman in her seventies. The book will stand as one of the great portraits of a wise, courageous and indomitable woman written in tribute by a grateful man - Laura Cumming

Deceptively simple, emotionally surprising, beautiful, and true - Melissa Harrison

An extraordinary story, gently told. This was just the book I needed - Nigel Slater

This is utterly engaging storytelling. The drama, the change, the mystery, the unknown; the details of nature, the moods, the hope and despair; the memories, reflections and learning that emerge out of long lives lived fully: The Place of Tides tells a beautiful story that is profound and moving - Jane Clarke

A love letter to the quiet and complex majesty of a little-known landscape and the women that tirelessly tend to it. It moved, humbled and educated me and made a place I have never set my eyes on suddenly vivid and close - Vanessa Kisuule

A charismatic portrait of fidelity and the true meaning of home - Nick Offerman

A fable-like tale, as beautiful and elusive as the idea of home and self it seeks to recover - Richard Flanagan