I Am An Island: The Sunday Times bestselling memoir of one woman’s search for belonging

I loved this book. It spoke of the power of nature to heal. Of the elemental reconnection that can be found through earth air and water. Of how redemption comes where we may least expect it, when we are at our lowest point. This is an enthralling, invigorating and at times tough read, its not simple or easy. It is a deep exploration of loneliness, of the walls we build to protect us and how we can find the light of true connection through wild nature, the loyalty and love of animals, through the power of immersion - in the cold water, the air, the voices of the birds - the power to heal. The story is an exploration of solipsism. It speaks of what it is to be a woman alone in a patriarchal world that will not accept your independence and right to your feminine power. The power that comes from the female spiritual connection to earth and water. this is not a story of 'outsiders' from london or english vs scottish as some are here wrongly trying to claim. It is not hoping to understand. analyse nor therefore criticise the workings of others' minds; it is an exploration of the inner workings of one brave strong resourceful woman's mind driven to breaking point by the pressures of life, her individual struggles and the redemption she found through finding her true wild female power. She may not run her croft how the prevailing culture claims she should but she sure as hell is brilliant and if some seemingly don't like that we can not blame the woman for enduring despite all obstacles, creating a beautiful life and forging for herself a deep connection to this island she has made her home.I Am an Island catches a zeitgeist of eco feminism, of female connection to our true wild nature. This work chimes with Sharon Blackie's If Women Rose Rooted and her exploration of the sovereignty of women in speaking for and protecting the land and the female spiritual connection that can be found where water meets lands steeped in ancient myth and magic. The writing is poetry. It is beautiful, it is life affirming. Read it and weep with the pure joy and pain of living.

I have read a,lot of nature memoirs but this one will stay with me for the vivid retelling and the startling imagery. It takes the reader on a journey that at times is raw and painful and at others is uplifting and beautiful. Highly recommended.

Rare for me to order a hardback, but in this case it was worth it.I would have given I Am an Island a four star ranking had the author failed to insert a bit of genuine humour towards the end of the story. It is a very serious book and the author does little to lighten up her harrowing tale by injecting at least a little irony.In the early chapters there was a bit of an 'I am a victim' element. I mean to say, a pair of Londoners show up on a Scottish island and buy a croft only to find they are surrounded by drunken hill billys. and they are shocked by this. Gimme a break, Jimmy.The writing is excellent. The author comes across as a real human being. Courageous. Creative. Tough. Sensitive. Someone I would enjoy to meet.The island where this is all going on is not actually remote. Sounds like a twenty minute ferry journey. I can relate to a lot of the island life descriptions, living on an island myself. Loved the cold water swim stories. Great stuff! I will endeavour to take the plunge this winter.Somehow I sensed the author reached a mystical space in herself through her trials and tribulations. Beautiful!I also learned quite a lot from the running a croft descriptions. Superb!The story inspired me. Appreciate the reverence for animal friends.I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a unique perspective on the human condition. I wish the author the very best. Our world needs more wild souls like her.

A rather bleak and depressing tale which makes you wonder what it would have taken to make Tamsin give up and try another way of life. In reading the promotional reviews I thought she must live somewhere excessively cold and remote and was surprised to recognize the Isle of Lismore straight away. Although I thought I would find this book down-to-earth and enlightening, I struggled to empathise with the author. She seemed to be acting from a privileged and entitled viewpoint throughout most of the book. If she really is as naive, self-obsessed and unable to take responsibility for what happens to her, as her constant victimization seems to suggest, I think I would have reacted to her rather as she alleges the islanders to have reacted. There are almost no likeable people described which, to my mind, reflect’s more on Tamsin rather than on the islanders. She seems to be clever in manipulating her story for readers but it comes across as not totally honest (you can’t live only on raw leaves nor deliver farm animals without help if you have two broken hands). In not telling us her story in a coherent way, I was left with many unanswered questions and left feeling she is stretching the truth at best. I found much of it hard to believe. I guess we have to realise she had worked in advertising and photography - the language of which is illusion, make-believe and image. Some of the writing is poetic but I found the style difficult over the whole book. I do hope this poor soul isn’t as self-pitying, unhappy and lonely as she appears.

Some memoirs are mechanically written with lots of detail and facts like a DIY manual of this is how I lived my life and what it contained. ‘I am an island’ is extraordinary and different. The narrative is undeniably poetic and breathtakingly, agonisingly honest. Don’t read this book if you can’t go there... if you can’t dive into the depths of loneliness, isolation and vulnerability. Waves of raw, beautiful empathy abound, assaulting senses and emotions. A truth about betrayal, discrimination and a woman left alone. Life is not a journey - life is a pilgrimage fearfully and heroically undertaken to find who we really are. This is the most beautiful, loving yet at times, harrowing, account of strength, courage and endurance ... not from forcing anything....but from letting go into wildness and becoming

Bellissimo libro

An absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, searing and moving memoir of extraordinary courage by Tamsin Calidas . Six months after I found myself mired in the New York intensive care units at the height of the pandemic surrounded by critically patients whom I struggled to save, I can finally concentrate on reading once again, one of my lifetime passions. The author recounts her own maelstrom of building a life on a remote croft on an island off the coast of Scotland buffeted by ferocious weather, brooding seas and gnarled, guarded locals. In the midst of her transition from publishing and advertising to becoming a fully fledged farmer Tamsin is abandoned in the most unexpected way and brought to new lows and yet again rises and presses on. While the book is profoundly evocative - each time I return to it in the evening I am buffered with salt air from the North Sea and I feel the cold to my marrow- it’s her amazingly courageous and solitary war of personal defiance even at her lowest ebb which somehow brings back the extraordinarily acute sense of loneliness I experienced while grieving for so much during the first surge of the pandemic. The author soldiers on despite the crushingly deep sorrows she is forced to bear and finds solace in her deeply compassionate heart which is touched by animals and the rare spirits among special locals who become her guardians and loved ones. The abandonment she experiences was so poignant to witness as she writes of it with such rawness but it also allows me to contemplate my own deep losses which emerged as the pandemic unveiled all civilization as we had until now known and like many others I confronted losses of my own . The threatening currents and devastating riptides in the seas surrounding Tamsin and her tiny hard won Croft remind me very much of the emotional maelstrom I found submerging me during the pandemic, a pandemic I mostly weathered with my wordless animals here at home and at work with my wordless patients on mechanical ventilators. Our worlds are so different but because of the strangeness of our bleak time, somehow so resonant. I am finding both great sorrow and solace in following Tamsin Calidas on her amazing journey.

Tiefgründige Beschreibung einer Selbstbefreiung und Selbstfindung unter schwierigsten Umständen. Wunderschöne Naturbeschreibungen.

Poetic, brutally honest.That is all I wish to write. To encourage others to read this work of non-fiction. Alas, gluttonous Big Brother Amazon requires his 20 words, or more.

Beautifully written... a story of one woman’s determination to stay the course and run the race, despite all the horrific events and heartaches which were thrown at her . I cannot believe that people can be so blatant ugly and racist! Shame on all of you on that island who were so rude to this woman. Amongst the darkness however there were glimmer of lights to guide the way. What incredible strength and determination this one woman has!