This is a book about the 3 Shiant Islands - Garbh Eilean (Rough Island), Eilean an Tighe (House Island) and Eilean Mhuire (Mary Island), which are located to the east of North Harris and 4 miles to the south west of the Pairc area of Lewis. Adam Nicolson was given the Shiants by his father Nigel when he was 21 years old. Nigel Nicholson had bought the Shiants in 1937 for £1,400. Sea Room is neither a history not a memoir but a well blended combination of both of these. It is a book to read slowly, savour and reflect upon. Each of the chapters are mainly about different aspects of the islands, e.g. Adam's boat Freyja, archaeology, spirituality, seabirds, sheep and geology. There are no chapter headings and although the book is illustrated with plenty of black and white photographs there are no captions for them, which I found a bit frustrating at times. However there are plenty of maps with keys and an index.
The author sums up the attraction of islands to many people over the ages very well:
"Islands are made larger, paradoxically, by the scale of the sea that surrounds them. The element which might reduce them, which might be thought to besiege them, has the opposite effect. The sea elevates these few acres into something they would never be if hidden in the mass of the mainland. The sea makes islands significant."
"Islands, because of their isolation, are revelatory, places where the boundaries are wafer thin."
8/10
Islands covered - The Shiant Islands
The only house on Eilean an Tighe
The west coast of Garbh Eilean from Eilean an Tighe
The east coast of Garbh Eilean from Eilean an Tighe
Garbh Eilean
Cottage on Eilean an Tighe
Looking south down the spine of Eilean an Tighe from the highest point on the island
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