This account of a summer spent learning about the vanishing tradition of looking after the Eider ducks, and holistically collecting their down for eider downs/duvets was wonderful.
Rebanks managed to get across the respect for a traditional way of living as it clashes with modern life in a fascinating way and he doesn't shy away from the tedium of the lifestyle or the introspection that the summer cause him.
I read this book just after Tove Janson's book about island life in Finland and they made wonderful companion pieces.

This work of non-fiction starts with one of the best opening paragraphs I’ve read in a while. I love entering and being immersed in new worlds and in this one it’s literally on the edge - the islands and islets of Norway. This is not a plot driven story, which is part of its charm. The book feels like being wrapped in and warmed by an eiderdown quilt - which is apt as the tradition of collecting eider feathers is exactly what ‘The Place of Tides’ is about. Our relationship with nature and with each other is at the heart of this lovely, gentle and quiet read which feels like taking a pause from our technology-driven, modern world.

Really interesting read about a duck woman on the Norwegian Islands and how she kept the traditional ways alive

It took me a while to get into this book but it was worth the wait. It's a story about a Cumbrian farmer and a his time with a "Duck Lady" on a small island in Norway. Anna goes every year to monitor the duck population and help them make nests so they can hatch their eggs. Her reward for this hard, back breaking work is so much more than the couple of bags of eider she gets to make into quilts - maybe only one or two for the whole of the season. The story though is about nature and being part of it and also about maintaining old traditions. This is the story of Anna's last season on the island and it becomes a story of acceptance and acknowledgement of her life over the past seventy years. It's a real window into an almost forgotten way of life at one with the nature.
Big thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Non fiction and particularly memoirs would not be my first choice of genre, however this book breaks the mould in ways. The author meets an elderly woman on a remote Norwegian island. He becomes fascinated by the nature of her job and the way in which it defines her. so much so that he asks to accompany her on her next working season. It becomes evident that he is unsatisfied with his own life although exactly why or how is not so clear. Both the author and the woman he decides to spend a "birding" season with have jobs that consume time and energy and necessitate some solitariness. Rebanks writes his account in such a way that it is about more than what he feels is missing in his life, the emphasis almost feels to centre more on Anna. he does learn more about himself and if I have anything bad to say about this book is that he never really reveals that in any depth. However he manages to evoke the beauty of the remote setting and the inner peace that it creates in both Anna and himself.

I enjoyed this book and part way through became thoroughly immersed in it.
A Cumbrian farmer struggling with his own thoughts and life spends the summer on an isolated island, off the northern Norwegian coast helping two women, who are trying to continue a traditional way of life by protecting Eider ducks whilst nesting and collecting down from those abandoned when the chicks have hatched.
Anna and Ingrid gradually accept his help and in turn he learns more about himself and what his future could be.
The farmer narrates the time spent in an area of majestic beauty in good and at times harsh weather, battling the elements and trying to encourage the ducks to nest. By understanding what drives Anna in what seems a difficult and hopeless task, he starts to understand what drives him in his own life, subsistence farming and how it impacts his family..

An honest and magical study of the relationship between humans and nature and a way of life which may soon be lost to history. Rebanks spends a season on a remote Norwegian island shadowing Anna, a ‘duck woman’ who cares for nesting eider ducks and harvests the down they leave behind.

Anna is the kind of character who is easy to mythologise - strong, stubborn, with a deep connection to the natural world. It’s this magnetism that draws Rebanks to her, and that makes her story so engaging for the reader. Rebanks captures her world in careful and candid detail, undergoing a transformation of his own over one summer on the island.

The Place of Tides is a gentle, mesmerising read - an ode to the healing powers of nature.

Although a bit bit of slow burner, it is well worth sticking with this book. Beautifully written and truly a masterpiece.

I’d heard of James Rebank and how he’d taken on the family farm in Cumbria so I was interested in reading this book and hear why he’d gone to a remote island off Norway to stay with a duck woman. He’d been to Norway as part of a group taken by the Norwegian tourist board many years ago and the memory of the trip had stayed with him. He felt a connection with Anna when he had met her. He decided to write to her and ask if he could go and stay with her while she was looking after the nesting eider ducks. She replied saying yes and to bring working clothes. They would be on the island for about 2 months.
It was going to be Anna’s last year on the island as she was now 70 and not in great health. Her friend Ingrid was going with them. It was hard work clearing old seaweed from nests and repairing them. Collecting more seaweed to line them with. The bad weather stopped them going out everyday which James Rebank found difficult. They had to use a compostable toilet. When the eider ducks eventually came they had to protect them from predators. It was a successful year although they did lose some to abandoned nests. After the ducks left they then had to collect the eider feathers from the nests and take them back to clean them, several times. The boat came to take them back to the main land with everything they had taken out with them.
It was a gentle read and interesting to hear about the duck women who do this job for very little money.
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I was asked to review this book by NetGalley. I was intrigued by the cover initally.

This was an inspring story about a "duck woman^ named Anna. She dedicates her life to a a population of elder ducks on an island.

A guy named James decides to spend a season with Anna and a friend. Anna as described has dedicated her life to keep thede ducks safe, as their popularion has been depleated over the years. Anna goes back to tradition. Anna has a real connection with nature as James and readers will discover.

Beautifully written, slow paced which helps the reader unwind too from their fast paced lives.

A trully humbling story recommended read.

A delightful read, it was a warm hug in book form!

James has given a voice to Anna and generations of ‘duck women’. The book moves at a day to day pace as James, Anna and Ingrid spend spring and early summer on the island overseeing the nesting season at a very practical level!

Anna shares with James, the history of the bird women and is honest in some of her personal reflections.

This was very different to my usual genre so the long chapters and writing style took some getting used to but overall was a gentle, enjoyable read.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.

This book pulls you deep into the lives of frail, elderly Anna, a Norwegian duck, woman. She is one of the stitches that hold a way of life that goes back aeons delicately in the 21st Century.

James weaves the story gently, respecting Anna and her friend Ingrid’s approach to their summer on the island, preparing for the Eider's arrival, protecting the nest and then stepping away from the Landscape and returning to their other lives.

Do not expect high-speed drama, there is plenty of drama, but it unfolds. Whether memories of the past or threats to the ducks in the here and now. Do expect a book that delivers with a lightness of touch and you will want to read on and on. It will leave you moved and changed.

Anna gains strength from the island and is determined to be part of a successful duck season. The ducks she understands are part of her emotional DNA.

James Rebanks steps into the aging Anna’s realm. No longer her solitary place, with assistant Ingrid who is learning the necessary nature lore of being a duck woman. Rebanks writes in a distinctive style that pulls the reader close as he unreels the narrative of life before, during and after the eiders. He is the interloper but not a passive observer he is drawn into the work assisting Ingrid, he is the student she is now the teacher. The writing style is immersive, the narrative cloaks you in an eiderdown of carefully crafted words. The story is more than the down left to be collected and cleaned at the end of the season. It is about regaining what is important and what we have lost as we speed through life governed by material possessions.

This a story that captures nature not through rose-tinted glasses, of a plucky heroic woman. It is a testament to Anna’s stubbornness, hard work and understanding of how traditions are at the heart of society. This is nature red in tooth and claw and toxic human relationships. The cement throughout the book is the story of the family, the Eiders and Anna.

A beautifully observed memoir of a way of life, hanging on despite so many obstacles for the Eider duck. The ducks have many predators, the natural animals and mink. Mink, we took to the islands to profit from their fur. The narrative ebbs and flows with Anna's memories and through her words and generosity of spirit, we step into her thoughts and understand, the pull of nurturing a haven for the Eiders to flourish. This is achieved by the skilful narration by James Rebanks. Place of Tides never preaches it is the unveiling of a landscape which without his words would remain an unknown way of life.

The Eider ducks need more Annas. Nature needs more Annas, individuals who give their time and effort to understand and be guardians of this precious and vulnerable world.

The Ducks from the sea need our help; sand eel stocks are being depleted, resulting in mother ducks arriving underweight. Hunger is driving the Eider back to the sea, their eggs remain unhatched.

Nature is a delicate balancing act. This book reminds us of our role in upsetting the equilibrium of climate and habitats. Somehow, we must quickly learn to live in partnership with nature. To cease extracting everything that can be bought and sold. This is our world and theirs.

Place of Tides evokes a landscape managed, controlled, and destroyed by the ebb and flow of salt water. A landscape of islands where weather is the sixth sense shaping a person’s experience day and night.


The Place of Tides reminds the reader of what we should value and what is important in life.

‘She looked like a Queen – not in her clothes or possessions but in her defiant eyes. Anna lived a rebellion against modernity.’

Be more Anna is my clarion call. Observe and act and understand the importance of nature’s ebb and flow.

Place of Tides by James Rebanks, published by Allen Lane, Penguin Books on 27th October 2024.

This 'story' provides a snapshot of time that the author spent on a tiny island off the coast of Norway, with an elderly 'duck woman' who is determined to keep her family traditions/heritage alive. James Rebanks shares echoes of a time gone by in this moving homage to Anna, on her last season as a 'duck woman', ensuring the safety of the eider ducks as they nest and collecting their down for duvets.
As well as Anna's story, the richly detailed description of the island and the flora and fauna add much to the book.
This wasn't my normal read - neither story, memoir, historical - but would recommend to anyone.

This is a beautifully told story of life on a remote Norwegian Island. James leaves his life in Cumbria to spend the Spring with Anna, who cares for eider ducks. The descriptions are just lovely and it is quite an emotional read in some ways, as you find out more of Anna's life. It is a very inspiring read and one I would really recommend to lovers of nature. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book by James Rebanks about his short time with two Norwegian woman caring for and facilitating an important role for eider ducks. Sadly it seems that traditions such as these seem to be coming to an end and it certainly does convey an end of an era.

3.5 stars rounded up.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin/Allen Lane for the arc.
This a beautifully written account of a short period of time (around 2 months) that James Rebanks spent on an isolated Norwegian island helping two Norwegian women care for nesting eider ducks. As with his previous books (dealing with life on a Cumbrian farm), Rebanks is at his best when describing the beauty and harsh realities of the natural world, and humankind’s attempts to both fight against and work with it for survival.
There are some gorgeous and moving passages in this work, and Rebank’s descriptions of some of the self-realisation he experienced whilst being forced to slow-down, contemplate and ‘just be’ were inspiring, but I did feel there was an awful lot of projection going on. He infers wise thoughts from the main duck-woman Anna, often just from a glance she gives him or a clenching of a fist/curling of a finger “I would ask her thoughts about something, and she would shrug and point to whatever the ducks were doing on the foreshore. Her meaning was clear:focus on this world instead, on what is, not on what you think about it.”
And how nice to be able to go and spend two months on a remote island and have time to rediscover yourself whilst your wife carries the heavy load of running the farm and raising your children in your absence - though Rebanks “Occasionally…felt a weary emptiness and wondered why I was not with my family at home, on my own farm.” I’m sure he didn’t feel half as weary as his wife did…
Overall a well-written account of one man’s attempts to slow down and find meaning in his life, and some fascinating descriptions of a lifestyle and region under threat from modernity.

The British narrator charts the last summer of a Norwegian woman looking after eider ducks on a remote island. It tells of the day-to-day work of running a duck station, interspersed with stories of the woman’s heritage and family. As he reflects on what makes her so special in the time he spends with her, he also compares it to his own life and what he should do differently.

It is quite inspiring how she has lived her life, but there is also a wistfulness that she has become too frail to live that life.

I was drawn to the description of the book and whilst the writing was great and evidently being something others will enjoy it just wasn’t for me. I Definitely recommend having a go though! It maybe your cup of tea!

I read this book as somebody recommended it to me, although it’s not a genre which I normally enjoy

I am so glad that I started it. I was engrossed from the beginning and finished it with a strong desire to visit the archipelago.

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came." –John F. Kennedy

Real life Cumbrian farmer James Rebanks was feeling lost. He felt the need to escape many buried feelings, and that created a desire for complete isolation, but true isolation is pretty much a fantasy in the modern world.
Can one ever escape from constant thoughts of grief, work, worry and pain?

James decided to contact Norwegian, Anna, an elderly lady whom he’d met some ten years before. The outcome was that he traveled to Norway, right on the edge of the Arctic, and spent the whole of Spring learning 70 year old Anna’s ways as she cared for wild eider ducks and collected their down, in what was to be her very last visit to a remote island.

This is the true story about one Spring spent on a duck station on a remote Norwegian island for James. However, the star of this memoir is duck woman Anna, who has dedicated many years caring for wild Eider ducks, giving them a safe haven, and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on.

Anna’s life and quiet wisdom makes James stop see, hear, and appreciate everything around him, slowly helping bring about a self-knowledge and forgiveness, and most importantly the process of healing his mental health. Beautifully told, this is food for the soul.