Among the Summer Snows: In Search of Scotland's Last Snows

by Christopher Nicholson

Overview

After a summer searching for the last snows in the Scottish Highlands, this is acclaimed novelist Christopher Nicholson’s beautiful and moving exploration of mountains, time and loss.

Among the Summer Snows is a profound meditation on nature and mortality, in which the survival of the old snow connects with the author’s personal experiences of loss and joy. Christopher Nicholson’s lifelong fascination with snow is made urgent as he hunts for Britain’s last remaining snow-beds during one of the warmest Augusts ever recorded.

Christopher Nicholson’s first piece of nature writing – following three critically-acclaimed novels – is 'the kind of beautiful writing that transcends form' (Paul Evans). 'Beautifully produced by an independent publisher' (Michael Kerr), Among the Summer Snows is an exquisite offering of prose and photography that is gathering shortlist prize attention, literary plaudits and word-of-mouth travels.

Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature

Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910463857
Publisher:	Global Book Sales
Publication date:	05/29/2018
Pages:	172
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Christopher Nicholson is the author of three novels, including The Elephant Keeper, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and Encore Prize, and Winter, described by Alison Lurie in the New York Review of Books as 'one of the most dramatically convincing and moving Famous Writer Novels I have ever read.' He has lived near Shaftesbury in Dorset for the past thirty years.

Read an Excerpt

Here the crystals gleam and glitter, shadow-bathing, hanging on to their essentail selves. Some collections of snow are small cahces of melting crystals, but others are as big as football pitches. It is their depth that really astounds.'

Editorial Reviews

'This is the kind of beautiful writing that transcends form - in this case nature writing - to arrive somewhere improbable and compelling.' Paul Evans, Guardian

'A beautiful book about love and loss, fragility and chance, the wide world and the near world...full of intense light and colour, extraordinary glimpses, moving insights and subtle humour.' Richard Kerridge, author of Cold Blood

'A ravishingly lovely book.' Keggie Carew author of Dadland

'What shines through is a love of wild places without the need to conquer summits or tick lists. It is a love affair that is addictive ... and [Nicholson] expresses it in such a beautiful way in this unusual and evocative narrative.' Active Outdoors

'A glorious little book, beautifully produced by an independent publisher.' The Telegraph

'Haunting, moving, silent, and profoundly beautiful.' The Great Outdoors

'Lyrical and elegiac, this debut is a tender account of an unusual fascination with the remaining snows of the Scottish Highlands. Nicholson offers us a wry, self-aware take on the relationship between humans and the changed (and changing) natural world.' Helen Mort, chair of Boardman Tasker Award judges

'Made me laugh and cry within just a few pages... left me humbled as he revealed a range of other interconnected wonders I never knew about.' Books in Scotland

'Destined to become a classic of mountain literature. Superb.' Chris Townsend, The Great Outdoors

'Strange, beautiful, eerie and unique, this is the best mountain book I've read in years.... as a literary curiosity it deserves all the praise likely to avalanche upon it.' Simon Ingram, Trail magazine

'To read about snow pockets was something that I had never expected that we still had in Scotland. There is more to this book than that though, there are musings on the weather, other walkers and a touching tribute to his late wife too. All through the book are hauntingly beautiful photos of the snow caves that he finds on his walks and the fragments of snow set against the dramatic landscape of the Scottish mountains.' Halfman, Halfbook

From the Publisher