Everyone dreams of owning an island, but very few people ever do.
Hollywood actors have purchased Pacific hideaways and millionaires
set themselves up on outcrops in the Caribbean, but for ordinary
mortals the dream usually remains unrealized. Adam Nicolson is the
exception. He doesn't just own an island. He owns three. In the
1980s, aged 21, he inherited the tiny Shiants from his father, who
had bought them 50 years earlier at the bargain price (even then)
of ?1400. Nobody lived there, and the only dwelling was a
dilapidated rat-infested house where Nicolson's wife still refuses
to sleep. The Shiants are not palm-fringed and sun-soaked; they sit
in the cold seas off the Outer Hebrides, and their geography is
bleak. They are surrounded by mighty cliffs, home to razorbills and
puffins. Seals play in the frothing seas. Yet Nicolson, like his
father before him, believes they are one of the most beautiful
places on the planet. The book opens defensively; Nicolson realises
that absentee English landlords are not popular in the Hebrides.
But he manages to convince the local Hebrideans, his readers and
himself that the islands are his in name only. They are, in a
sense, independent, continuing to survive in the fierce swell
whoever's name is on the land deeds. With great affection and
minute detail, he takes us over every nook and cranny of the
islands - their unforgiving geology, their wildlife, their modest
place in history and legend. Mirroring the unfolding of the
islands' life is Nicolson's own personal history, from young man to
husband and father. The result is a poetical, romantic homage to a
remote place, told from the heart. Even if few of us can live the
dream of owning our own Lilliputian kingdom, at least in this book
we can read about it. Review by Dea Birkett (Kirkus UK)
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be given your own
remote islands? Thirty years ago it happened to Adam Nicolson. Aged
21, Nicolson inherited the Shiants, three lonely Hebridean islands
set in a dangerous sea off the Isle of Lewis. With only a stone
bothy for accommodation and half a million puffins for company, he
found himself in charge of one of the most beautiful places on
earth. The story of the Shiants is a story of birds and boats,
hermits and fishermen, witchcraft and catastrophe, and Nicolson
expertly weaves these elements into his own tale of seclusion on
the Shiants to create a stirring celebration of island life.
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