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.

I was really intrigued by the blurb for The Place of Tides, this was a tradition I’d never heard of let alone knew anything about and it was fascinating to learn about it.

This was a very inspiring, moving and thought-provoking story about friendship and the importance of preserving tradition and protecting & embracing communities.

The characters and setting were simply gorgeous and wonderfully descriptive.

A beautiful unique & inspiring story.

I hadn’t read any James Rebanks before and although the story here is interesting I didn’t find the telling of it particularly satisfying. The nature writing aspect of it was well done though. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I love a soft eiderdown, now I know why.
I was drawn to this book by the cover and the promise of living on an uninhabited island for 10 weeks.
James meets Anna when he is working in a remote area of Norway, he is drawn to her strength and drive. Years later when James is married with four children he feels disturbed and as though something is missing from his life. He contacts Anna and asks if he can accompany her on her annual trip to gather Eider from a remote island. When he arrives he sees that Anna has aged considerably and seems ill, he accompanies her and her friend Ingrid to a small small island in the Vega Archipelago, they are taken out on a motor boat and James senses the women's disregard for the men on the boat.
The men visit them on the island for a meal and get drunk, this leads them to tell many stories of the German occupation and the length that people went to in the resistance, the Germans also ate the ducks which reduced the duck population. Mink were introduced to the islands and some escaped, they also ate the ducks.
When the three reach the island they have a lot to unpack and to make the house comfortable. the food that they eat sounds delicious as they need a lot of stamina for the work. Anna is at first very tired and has to leave the job of locating and salvaging the nests to Ingrid and James, Ingrid is a perfectionist as she wants to please Anna, eventually Anna is well enough to help them with repairing nests and making new ones, they have to be carefully places out of the way of predators.
James portrayal of the changing scenery, the roughness and beauty of the landscape are very moving.
The ducks begin to return to the island and the three are busy counting the eggs, protecting the ducks and surviving.
The chicks begin to hatch and make their way to the sea, there are some hazardous journeys and some amusing stories. Anna and Ingrid teach James to collect the down, what a painstaking job this is, teasing out bits of wood etc until just the down is left, then further cleaning. the down that they collect is enough to make one eiderdown.
They return to the mainland and after the initial strangeness, James meets Anna's family, he realises that he had judged her two husbands harshly in his haste to protect Anna.
James has insights into his own life and treatment of his family and is more contented, he is ready to return to his own farm.
Thank you James, Netgalley and Penguin for this delightful and unusual book.

Gentle, inspiring and thought-provoking quasi biography.

Feeling lost and looking for time away from constant worrying, James Rebanks, a farmer in Cumbria, finds himself reaching out to Anna, a 70 year old Norwegian who spends the spring on a remote island on the edge of the Arctic, caring for the wild eider ducks and collecting their down.

She is carrying on an ancient tradition that has been looked down upon and has been close to dwindling away.

James works alongside Anna and her companion Ingrid, cleaning and repairing the nesting areas and trying to protect the birds from a range of predators.

He initially thinks that Anna, like himself, is going to the island to seek solitude, but learns a number of lessons, including the power of forgiveness.