Restless and curious, she leaves Scotland for London, doesn’t find what she’s looking for, and so moves on to Berlin, a city where no one is ever quite trendy enough: “There’s always a sense of arriving in Berlin just a little too late.” Now in her mid-30s, she is once again striving to understand her place in the world. In The Outrun, the harsh, beautiful landscape of island life formed the backdrop of the author’s struggle to overcome issues with addiction as a young woman. In both books there is a strong sense of place. One way Liptrot achieves this is to locate her subject matter, her internal conflicts, in the wider world. There's always a sense of arriving in Berlin just a little too late As with her acclaimed debut, The Outrun, a recovery memoir of sorts set on the author’s childhood home of the Orkney Islands, there is great depth of feeling in her writing, without ever being mawkish. Whether she’s describing the cycles of the moon, the flight paths of migratory birds, or the addictive qualities of social media, Liptrot is always engaging her thoughts considered, the language lucid and judicious. In The Instant, she writes: “I’m interested in equinoxes and solstices, the moments when the planets and the years balance and tip, the instants when we come in and out of shadow.” Scottish author Amy Liptrot’s new book is a case in point. A mark of a good writer is the ability to turn whatever interests them into interesting material for the reader.
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