Shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Award 2018.
A moving account of depression and the restorative power of the sea.
Victoria channels her knowledge as a historian and her understanding of the land around her into beautiful nature writing.
MARKET: Wild; Elizabeth Gilbert; The Outrun - Amy Liptrot.
There's no shortage of books about wild swimming... Perhaps the most intriguing of the lot is Swimming with Seals' Scotland on Sunday
onderfully evocative... Fascinating... The writing is consistently alert and engaging' Scotsman
Attentive, astute and beautiful... I adored it' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun
'I finished this book wanting to find a cold lido, or jump into a lake, or walk into the cold sea and stay there for as long as I could stand it, and then do it again' Guardian
Each little "dreamlike postcard" in this captivating book takes you deeper into the world novelist Victoria Whitworth experienced as a sea-swimmer in the wild waters of Orkney' Sainsbury's Magazine
The author's descriptions of the coastline in Orkney and the savannah in Kenya, where she spent some of her childhood, are sharp and original... enjoy wallowing in the richness of her theological, philosophical and literary knowledge' The National
'An eloquent celebration of swimming in the cold waters of Orkney and a fascinating memoir' Half Man Half Book
'A tale of redemption through nature and water's powerful ability to heal' Outdoor Photography
Intelligent, wide-reaching memoir... somehow refreshing, and calming, even in its introspection' The Bookseller.
'Absorbing and thrilling' Ella Foote, Outdoor Swimming
The first thing that hooked me into this story was the sea... An unusual [memoir]' Evening Standard
'She writes beautifully of selkies and mermaids' Guardian
'This isn't really a book about swimming at all, but a book about how we are controlled by the voices of the dead; about how the whole of life is necessarily a seance. That's a humbling perspective' Five Books
'An extraordinary book' TLS
An intensely painful and personal memoir... This tapestry of myth, folklore and history, woven alongside her own story, imbues it with extra meaning and emotion. You'll be raring to jump into the freezing cold sea after reading this' Scotland Magazine