Reviews
A lyrical, brave memoir... [Liptrot] walks the hills and dances between the standing stones of Stenness; she joins a wild swimming club and, hauling herself from the gelid waters, 'naked on the beach, I am a selkie slipped from its skin.' It's this aptitude Liptrot has for marrying her inner-space with wild outer-spaces that makes her such a compelling writer--and one to watch., Whether [Liptrot]... writes of walking along the wind-scoured coasts or taking polar-bear dips in the icy waters, her prose is spare, lean, and beautiful, much like the country about which she writes., The Outrun is an astonishingly beautiful book... Her account of her addiction and recovery is electric, sexy, immediate, and raw, leaving the reader reeling in her wake. And yet she's also elegant, thoughtful, and controlled... A luminous, life-affirming book, and I have no doubt that I'll be pressing it into people's hands for years to come., Uncompromising and lyrical...Liptrot's writing is strong and sure... The Outrun is a bright addition to the exploding genre of writing about place and our place in the natural world., Liptrot is an Orcadian warrior with the breeze in her blood and poetry in her fingers, and The Outrun equals works by fellow islanders such as George Mackay Brown and Peter Maxwell Davies. It may even be a future classic. Wherever she journeys next, you will want to go with her., Amy Liptrot has lived her life on the edge of things, both literally and metaphorically. The Outrun, her beautiful first book, gives a wonderfully evocative account of both, blending searing memoir with sublime nature writing, and coming up with a unique piece of prose that amounts to a stirring personal philosophy of how to live. Her descriptive writing of the [Orkney] islands and their wildlife absolutely sizzles, a scintillating mix of clear-eyed insight and poetic heart., Uncompromising and lyrical ... The Outrun is a bright addition to the exploding genre of writing about place and our place in the natural world., A lyrical, brave memoir.... It's this aptitude Liptrot has for marrying her inner-space with wild outer-spaces that makes her such a compelling writer--and one to watch., This magnificent memoir is a record of transformation in its truest sense... Orkney legends tell of seals changing into humans, but, here, Liptrot is the shape-shifter, peeling off her wetsuit like blubber after snorkeling in the ice-cold sea., [T]he sheer sensuality of Liptrot's prose and her steely resolve immediately put her right up there with the best of the best. Liptrot is an Orcadian warrior with the breeze in her blood and poetry in her fingers, and The Outrun equals works by fellow islanders such as George Mackay Brown and Peter Maxwell Davies. It may even be a future classic.
