
Bothy
Kat Hill
£16.99
Mr B's review
What began as a research project by Kat Hill turned into a journey across British countryside, where she discovered an unexpected community of people taking refuge in bothies from the rush of modern life. In the safe and quiet, they find a perspective can be carried back home.
The history of bothies is long and closely tied into livestock and land management. Now, bothies are a treasure hunt for hikers. Their fame grew following the publication of The Bothy Bible, and when 2020 lockdowns turned our countryside into a tourist honeypot, competition over them grew. It is a discussion of access to nature, land management and ownership.
Kat reads visitor logs, befriends other hikers, shares stories and travels with friends. In their conversations and her own musings, she has the chance to explore her own relationship, personal and academic issues. Issues that are lessened when she is snug in a small and starlit shelter so far away from city life. – Katrina
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE
A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
‘The bothy embrace is addictive’ ADAM NICOLSON
‘Will have you reaching for your boots’ CAL FLYN
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A bothy is a remote hut in the wilderness that you can’t reserve, with no electricity, mod-cons or running water. The doors are always unlocked, you just need to step inside.
From the rugged cliffs at the northern tip of Scotland to the fairy-tale valleys of Wales, historian Kat Hill tours us across the UK exploring the history of these wild shelters and her fellow wanderers – past and present.
Bothy is a stirring, beautiful book for anyone who longs to run away to the wilds
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‘A thoughtful exploration of what these remote outposts mean to their users’
FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A beguiling combination of travel writing, nature writing, social history and personal reflection’
DAILY MAIL
Publisher Review
EARLY PRAISE FOR BOTHY
‘An intelligent and thoughtful book that will have you reaching for your boots. Hill offers learned and considered reflections on the consolations of retreat, simple living, of finding even temporary shelter when all outside is tempest. It is also a meditation on change: climate change, emotional growth, and the unquenchable nostalgia for a past slipping ever further from view’
Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment
‘Marvellous… It would be difficult to think of a subtler or more careful exploration of the wrinkles of modern life and modern nature, with all its traps, delights, delusions and possibilities.
Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides
‘A questing, atmospheric collection of meditations of the essential nature of bothy life. A book steeped in dubbin, wood smoke, lanolin, and love of wild places, Kat Hill’s hymn to the humble highland hut will delight and inform armchair travellers, weekend walkers, and veteran rough-stuffers alike’
Dan Richards, co-author of Holloway
‘You can’t imagine just how much I loved the book. The honesty, the curiosity, the celebration and exploration all I wanted to do was to sneak under my covers and keep reading… the universality underneath the particularity is going to strike a chord with so many readers’
Sophie Howarth, author of Looking at Trees and co-founder of The School of Life
Find this book on the following lists
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May 2024 New Releases: Nature
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Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing Longlist 2024
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