Adrift
A Secret Life of London’s Waterways
$16.00
- Paperback
288 pages
- Release Date
3 November 2016
Summary
From deep winter to late autumn, from east to west, Adrift takes the reader on a tour of the people, politics, history and wildlife of London’s canals and rivers.
Blending nature writing, social observation and memoir, Helen Babbs invites you on an eye-opening journey into a different side of the city.
From Walthamstow Marsh in the east to Uxbridge in the west, Helen Babbs journeys along London’s waterways on a canal boat called Pike, putting down roots for two weeks at a time before moving on. Taking in the River Lea and the Lee Navigation, the Regent’s Canal and the Grand Union, she explores the London landscape in all its guises: marshland, wasteland, city centre and suburb.
Adrift charts a year of Helen’s life on Pike, exploring the changes wreaked by the seasons as well as by developers, and recounting the practical trials of living aboard. It is a story of mapping and discovery, of escape and opting out, but also of making connections and finding home. Just as the coots and cormorants dodge the detritus of a large city, so too does Helen wend through the beauty and the dirt to reveal an intimate and unusual portrait of London and of life.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781785781278 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1785781278 |
| Author: | Helen Babbs |
| Publisher: | Icon Books |
| Imprint: | Icon Books |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 288 |
| Release Date: | 3 November 2016 |
| Weight: | 244g |
| Dimensions: | 18mm x 129mm x 198mm |
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Critics Review
‘Babbs is an excellent nature writer, evoking the lives and emotions tied to the water. Charming’
Adrift is an engaging introduction to living on a narrow boat, held together with atmospheric descriptions of reconnecting with life’s simple pleasures … It is at its best when capturing the transition from a life on land to a life on board, as well as mapping the evolving relationship between urban building developments and the canal’s ecology. – Times Literary Supplement
Babbs is an excellent nature writer, evoking the lives and emotions tied to the water. Charming – Steven Cooper * Waterstones Events Manager, The Bookseller *
A compelling exploration of river living * Homes and Gardens *
One of the best waterways books for decades * Waterways World *
A treat … Babbs’s effortless prose is tight and lyrical, moseying along at a calm, steady pace, but there are moments both barbed and cutting … A serious and fascinating book * Hackney Citizen *
Chapter after chapter of utterly captivating prose * Caught by the River *
Waterways writing at its finest: the breathtaking, boat-eulogising Adrift. – @TheBookBarge
Helen Babbs
Helen Babbs is a writer and journalist. Her work has been published by the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, New Statesman and Time Out, among others. Helen’s first book - My Garden, the City and Me, about urban nature and the glory of growing things - was published in 2011 and nominated for two garden writing awards.
Returns
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