This story is about the women who go out to the remote Norwegian islands to help the wild eider ducks during nesting season, and collect the resulting down after. The author goes out and shares Anna's final season with her friend Ingrid, and learns the traditional tasks of preparing the nests, and the island to encourage as many ducks as possible to come. He tells the stories of these women and the history of when it was a thriving industry, plus his own journey of self discovery. Beautifully written, captures the sights, sounds and feeling of being part of something truly unique

When women were islands, and seas were roads
—
There are books about islands, and books about women, and books about women on islands. There are classics of the field, like The Summer Book. There is this.

It’s a haunting, evocative book, telling the many lives of Anna, an old Norwegian woman on her last trip as an eider gatherer. There are stories of her life, of her relatives, the tales they told, the myths of Norway and of the remote Atlantic coast where she gathers her riches of eiderdown. Rebanks recounts his own connection to Anna’s dying craft, the connections with his own farming history and present.

But what does the author want to say with the book? Anna is not the last of her breed, as the accompanying (relatively) younger woman is there to learn. Rebanks admits at the opening of the book that they don’t share much language, and yet the book is rich with Anna’s rememberings and secret knowledge; but where does this come from? The book wafted over me, a steady flow of myths of remoteness, of unknowable human actions, of people and lives that attest to the indomitable spirit of humans to live where they can. At the end I felt only that I read a book that recorded something with importance, but which had been transmitted to me through a third party, and in the transmitting had lost whatever it was that caught Rebanks’s own eye.

A readable three stars.

The Place of Tides is beautifully written and transports you to another place where time is spent in an entirely different way to that of modern life. I loved this book and couldn't put it down. I wanted to know everything about Anna, and to follow her stories past and present. What an interesting and strong woman, whose work has preserved tradition, conservation, and played a role in future generations culture . James Rebanks writing is captivating, lyrical and inspiring. His words make you feel like you're reading a fantasy or fairy tale when in fact it is non-fiction. I would highly recommend. I chose this for our store book club group and majority of the members all loved it too.

The Place of Tides is a contemplative and introspective read, offering a beautifully written exploration of memory, identity, and the profound connection between people and the places that shape them. While the book is undeniably well-crafted, it occasionally feels as though its core material—a thoughtful and evocative meditation—might have been better suited to a long-form magazine article rather than a full-length book.

That said, the quality of the prose is undeniable, with passages that linger in the mind long after reading. The author excels at creating vivid, atmospheric descriptions, as seen in lines such as:
“The tide whispered against the shingle, retreating in rhythms as old as the earth itself, leaving behind its treasures—fragments of shell, pieces of driftwood, a necklace of seaweed strung across the shore like a gift from the sea.”

Similarly, the introspective tone allows for moments of deep reflection, such as:
“We do not leave the places we love; they cling to us, weaving themselves into our very being until we carry them like shadows, even when the light shifts and they’re no longer visible.”

While these moments of brilliance are scattered throughout the text, the narrative as a whole occasionally feels stretched thin, as though the central themes and ideas are revisited one too many times in slightly different guises. The book’s introspective nature, while a strength, sometimes slows the pacing, making it feel less like a novel and more like an extended essay with fictional elements woven in.

This was beautifully written, but I found it very slow to read. I was intrigued by the blurb and I think it was quite accurately described; however, this was not a book that I connected with. The setting is stunning and it is certainly an unusual way of life to observe, though the telling is a little repetitive in places. I am sure the fault is mine rather than the writer's as this wasn't one I feel I would recommend to a friend to read.

A story so beautifully crafted and clearly told that I thought it must have been based on a true experience. We learn of the hardships endured by the Norwegian women who faced difficult, lonely conditions to harvest eider feathers each year and the simple life lessons they were able to pass on to an outsider who learned to adapt to their pace and to exist without the luxuries normally taken for granted.

Beautiful and through provoking study of a dying way of life. Rebanks interplays on his own journey to a remote island to spend the summer with Anna, a Norweigan 'Duck Woman' - reflecting on his own desire for solitude and uncovering her life story as thier bond forms. Wonderfullly written and a true study in the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature. Highly recommend, even if you've never wondered where Eiderdown comes from - you'll be mesmerised!

First of all I must confess that I haven't yet read 'The Shepherd's Life' nor 'English Pastoral', both of which have been hugely acclaimed, bestselling memoirs by this author. But his reputation led me to pick up this book which was published in the autumn. It's rather an odd subject to focus on but he does write rather nicely and I very much enjoyed reading it...

Apparently James Rebanks supplements his income as a farmer by travelling, and writing. This book has come about through a trip he made to Norway.

Many years ago he met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived here alone and had devoted herself to caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down.

Rebanks decided he wanted to spend more time getting to know this woman, to experience her lifestyle and participate in her livelihood so he wrote to her and secured an invitation to join her on the island. This book is the result of that visit.

The descriptions of the landscape, battling with the weather, the endless summer light and understanding the habits of the birds and harvesting their down is all fascinating. But the book is more than appreciating a centuries-old pursuit, or being immersed in the natural world, Rebanks seeks to highlight his lessons in self-knowledge and forgiveness.

At some point this winter, most readers will be snuggled under a duvet – and if you have the fanciest of furnishings, that coverlet might be stuffed with eiderdown, one of the softest and scarcest substances on the planet. True eiderdown is harvested from the nests of wild eider ducks which live, ironically, in one of the least soft places around – wind-swept isolated islands off the coast of Norway. This book tells the story of a single season on one of those rocks: author James has been invited to spend the summer with 70-year-old Anna, one of the last remaining traditional eiderdown harvesters or “duck women”, who has devoted her life to preserving this ancient practice, living solo among the ducks, protecting them from predators and preparing to harvest the valuable feathers at the end of the season. By day James and Anna repair nest sites, frantically dodging the weather to be ready for the ducks’ imminent return: by night they share life stories, and James dwells on the choices that have taken him this far from his wife, children and family farm back in Wales. On the surface, this strange and unforgettable book is a surprisingly fascinating read about the practice of eiderdown farming but – like all the very best nature writing – it’s so much more than that. As the season rolls on, James sheds his preconceptions and finds himself tackling huge themes: the importance of preserving traditions, but also striking a balance and avoiding self-destructive obsessions: the unflinching realities of ageing and accepting our limitations, yet also pushing boundaries where we’re able to– and, most importantly, the magic that can happen when you’re forced to slow your frenetic pace to a more soulful, more meaningful, more weather-dependent existence. ‘Be more duck-woman’ is a life goal that we can all get on board with.

I wanted to come into a new year reading James Rebanks’s latest book The Place of Tides because this feels like an important year both for my own personal journey and the planet. We crossed into 2025 with yet another storm, not a named one granted, but still some pretty sharp winds and a multitude of flood warnings. Even as I write now roads are closed in my town due to more flooding.

We can be in no doubt that we have fundamentally changed the climate of the Earth through industrialised, consumer lifestyles and that changes to the way we live are also coming, whether we like them or not. Exactly what this will look like and over what timeframe the change will come we cannot say, but I believe we will do well to look for wisdom on the edges of our civilisation, because that is where I think we are heading.

The Place of Tides is the story of a season James spent tending to eider ducks off the coast of Norway on the Vega archipelago with Anna and Ingrid. Anna’s heritage is from these islands and although she lived a recognisable “civilised” life as a mother holding down a regular job for many years, the last 30 wilder years have been devoted to reinvigorating a lost way of life. It is a life of passion for a place and a creature, and a story that offers inspiration and hope.

For long periods nothing happens, there is just watching and waiting, and then when action comes it is to nurture and protect the life that eventually flocks to the small islands to procreate. Even there sit lessons for all of us, teaching us to observe, to consciously move into the natural flows of life and to then humbly join in with the work that is going on. Time and again “nature” tells us that we need to set aside hubris and ego, but time and again we fail to listen.

To drive home the point, industrial pollution still threatens to overwhelm even these remote landscapes as James describes plastic waste sweeping onto the shorelines. Even if we discovered a limitless, free and clean energy source our instinct for greed would overwhelm the world. As Marilynne Robinson beautifully summarises in her essay Freedom of Thought: "Christian theology has spoken of human limitation, fallenness, an individually and collectively disastrous bias toward error. I think we all know that the earth might be reaching the end of its tolerance for our presumptions."

The strongest takeaway from Anna’s story for me was the importance and meaningfulness of a small passion in a small place. Anna’s connection to the ducks, to the islands and to the people who make their lives there, alongside her setting aside of personal ego, are where I believe we will find human hope and salvation. In our modern Western culture we have made idols of ourselves, seeking to make the world revolve around our short lives; seeing it all, doing it all, consuming it all, rather than finding our appropriate space to join the creation.

I had a feeling that this book would be a good place to start my year, a way to divine a path for what is to come, and that is exactly what it has proved to be. As the eider season unfolds it shapes things to be let go and things to be nurtured. I hope to spend 2025 living more consciously into a way of life that connects me to people and place, that shrinks my need to be seen and allows me to walk gently, humbly and curiously through this uncertain, precarious and deeply mysterious life.

This is the second book I've read by this author and I am again in awe of his beautiful writing that evokes the setting of this charming book. A delight for the senses.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Anna lives on the Norwegian coast and since she was fifty, she has spent every spring and early summer caring for eider ducks on a rocky island, reviving the tradition of the eider wives and reconnecting with both nature and her family's past. James Rebanks meets her on a journalist's junket one year and as time passes and he becomes more hopeless about what he's trying to do with his own land, he thinks of Anna more and more until he decides to go and spend a season with her, understanding her work and hoping to be inspired.

What I liked best about this book is that he is inspired, but not in the ways he imagines. This is an object lesson in understanding that what we think we need is not always what we actually need and sometimes e we need to be gently schooled by two old women who quietly get on with making the best of things.

It is a very simple, but beautifully told book about a time when he was feeling a bit lost and seeking some solitude. He reached out to Anna, a 70 year old Norwegian woman he had met some years earlier. Anna was one of the last remaining duck women; these were the Women that would go out to the remote islands where the eider ducks came to breed. They would build nests, look after the ducks, and when they left at the end of the season, they would collect their feathers, which were a very valuable commodity. In times past, people could get rich from the feathers, but the ducks have been struggling for years. Already in decline, WW2 was disastrous for them; the were used to people, so when the German soldiers arrived they were easy targets, (not going there). The population was decimated to feed the German army. Later, mini were introduced to the islands so that the islanders could make some extra money from their fur, but the escaped; it seems that was just as bad for the eider ducks as it has been back here for the water vole.

From the time I first heard about it, I thought this was a strange choice of topic of Rebanks, and, as expected, I found it was the stuff of a long-read magazine article rather than a whole book. In brief, he travels to a polar island of Norway to be apprenticed to an older woman who has long looked after the resident eider colony, making them nests. It is a mutualistic arrangement in that she harvests the down feathers they leave behind.

Rebanks depicts himself as undergoing a (midlife) crisis of purpose and attitude. Being in nature, doing one’s duty, and adapting to change are the lessons he absorbs, and spells out for readers. His writing is as strong as always, but I kept wishing for more story, more of a so-what.

I like James Rebanks writing. It always beautifully describes situations to an extent that you can close your eyes, see & smell the scenes.

Some might find this style boring, but I don't regard this book as something I'd read from cover to cover. I've been reading it alongside other page-turning type books. So picking this book up and learning about ducks and remote Norwegian island life is like wrapping up in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in front of a fire. It's comfort food for the brain at it's best.

I like James Rebanks writing. It always beautifully describes situations to an extent that you can close your eyes, see & smell the scenes.

Some might find this style boring, but I don't regard this book as something I'd read from cover to cover. I've been reading it alongside other page-turning type books. So picking this book up and learning about ducks and remote Norwegian island life is like wrapping up in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in front of a fire. It's comfort food for the brain at it's best.

I have never read anything by James Rebanks before and the blurb suggested The Place of Tides is not my usual genre but it sounded so interesting I thought I'd give it a go. I was really pleasantly surprised, the book is beautifully written. It's captivating and full of wisdom and it pulled me right in. It's an enchanting tale and I found it a very relaxing read. I totally recommend this book.

This was my first time reading a book by this author and although this isn’t my normal genre, I was intrigued by the book description. I’m afraid it’s proved to me that I should stick to my normal choices as although this book was beautifully written, I struggled to stay connected with it. I can imagine it took a lot of research and I did enjoy “learning” about the local traditions.

First time reading James Rebanks. The synopsis really appealed to me but I found it quite a slog. Not quite the genre I usually read and I wanted to widen my reading experience. The natural world as described and written were well researched and evoking but otherwise a book that didn’t really grip.

Thank you NetGalley and the Publishers, Penguin Press for this ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free ebook copy of The Place of Tides. What a different, inspiring and incredible story about a man who spends a season on an island in the Norwegian archipelago with two amazing women who are dedicated in preserving an age old tradition of encouraging the nesting of wild eider ducks in order to harvest their feathers and down.

So many wise words in this book where the reader learns from the fabulous characters as well as the birds themselves.

“The water never looked the same twice, like someone was constantly changing the filters on a photograph.”

“geese take turns at the front when they migrate, because the front bird is working the hardest, and the others ride in its slipstream. So, rather sensibly, they drop back after a while, to catch their breath, and are pulled along while they recover. Men are not so wise.”

“the first rule of living is to live. To see, hear, smell, touch, and taste the world.”

“The males had evolved to be seen, to fuss, squabble, and fight. …The female ducks evolved to be unseen.”

“There was the sense of an ending, but this show wasn’t quite over. When we left, the work wouldn’t be completely done.”

“We cannot be what we are and what we aspire to be at the same time, something in us has to die for something else to be born.”

“A story is rarely as simple as it seems.  We are all a bundle of virtues and vices, strengths and flaws, hopes and fears.”

“a good life was about forgiveness  –  accepting others’ flaws as we hope they might in turn forgive ours.”

“if we are to save the world, we have to start somewhere. We just have to do one damn thing after another.

What a privilege to have ‘met’ Anna through this book. Thank you so much for this book.