The publisher’s attempt at describing this book’s genre seems pretty accurate to me, loaded as it is with words such as ‘health’, ‘self-help’, ‘illness’, ‘well-being’, ‘family’ and ‘memoir’. Would there be enough nature in here for me, I wondered. And the answer was a resounding ‘yes!’ (although one can’t easily have too much).
Those drawn to this book because of its honest account of pain, depression, exhaustion and more may find the references to wildlife a bit of a distraction but I hope that they cotton on to the role that nature plays in many of our lives as a means to excite us but also to calm us. Those drawn to the book for its wildlife content may find, like I did, that one was so captured by the author’s honest telling of her story that one wanted to reach a happy ending.
The author’s father seems like a great bloke and he provides many of the early wildlife encounters. Hitchin’s Nightingales provide the inspiration for a whole chapter – even though there aren’t any, any longer.
I enjoyed this book very much, probably because nature is written all the way through it but all the more because it is so engagingly written.
The cover? The cover is attractive and matches the title. I’d give it 8/10.
Land Beneath the Waves: how the natural world helped one woman navigate chronic illness, self-acceptance and belonging by Nic Wilson is published Summersdale.
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