Wild Women - Journey into the Wilderness with Women Writers by Alexia Wdowski

The puddles outside collect on the tarmac as the nights start grow darker. Lights come on outside and shoppers hurry along the pavement in winds, running from sudden showers. Time for cups of steaming tea, fogged up windows and bookish adventures with three wild women who will help you curl up, lick your wounds and stray into new lands without ever turning off your electric throw. 

Epic adventures

Have you ever fancied walking the Pacific Crest Trail in America? It spans 2,650 miles which is a ridiculously epic journey considering it takes a standard human person about a week of walking every day to walk even 100 miles. How about doing this alone, as a 26 year old woman, in America where there are bears. Oh, and you have no money, a burgeoning issue with grief, walking boots that are too small and a problematic new relationship. Luckily you don’t have to as Cheryl Strayed has done it first and written about it in this classic struggling woman meets nature memoir.

Wild - Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl changes her name and strays from her intended path when her mother dies. She journeys from lost to found by throwing herself alone into a literal and metaphorical  journey that leads her away from grief and self-sabotage into the new and changed landscape of surviving without her mother. Tender, moving, knowing and adventurous, reading this will make you a better person without you even noticing. After reading the book you can instantly get another Cheryl hit by re-watching the film adaptation starring Reese Witherspoon and a very large rucksack.

~ when you’ve finished this: try ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ advice on love and life from someone who’s been there by Cheryl Strayed. 

Wisdom

These things can make you wise, if you are lucky. But you don’t always have to walk 2,650 miles to outrun a problem. Amy Liptrot writes her way home instead in The Outrun. Her nature memoir with a twist, (London plus alcoholism) is currently being adapted for the screen starring a blue-haired Saoirse Ronan. You can get in first with the book which gets very real about addiction and recovery and follows Amy home to the Orkney Islands, a cluster of 70 islands in the Northern Isles of Scotland where her past and present intertwine.

The Outrun - Amy Liptrot 

Amy gets sober in a heady mix of longing for the Orkneys where she grew up, and the hipster streets of South East London where she drank. Lost somewhere between the two, she moves back to the wildness of island life and starts to put the pieces of a new life together.

Contains upheaval, hard-won recovery wisdom and so much wild swimming before it was even a thing. Thinking about it, the pandemic and Amy Liptrot may have actually made it a thing.  

 ~ When you’ve finished this: dive right into the next installment: ‘The Instant’ - after becoming sober Amy moves to concrete cool Berlin, wears black, uses a lot of tinder and hunts for the elusive raccoon in the edgy city streets.

The Salt Path - Raynor Winn

When they lose their family home Raynor and her husband Moth refuse to age gracefully or get on the endless council waiting list, instead they take a tent and start walking, looking to nature, the kindnesses of the trail, and the boldness of new adventures to sustain them on the 630 mile South West Coastal path. 

~ But what happens next? Lucky for you there is already a second book out on the shelves. Raynor Winn’s follow up The Wild Silence will tell you exactly that and of course it has the word Wild in the title :)

You can buy all of these beauties from our website https://thebookshopbythesea.co.uk/ with next day delivery and the extra warm fuzzy feeling of supporting your local independent bookshop. So dig out your biscuits, find a quick cat and let these books show you the way home.

~Warmest Wishes~

Alexia