Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month for July 2025

How far must you travel to truly find yourself?

Many years ago, James Rebanks encountered an elderly woman living alone on a tiny, wave-lashed island off the coast of Norway. Her life was devoted to a centuries-old craft: tending wild eider ducks and gathering their valuable down. Once a trade that brought wealth and prestige, eiderdown collecting had dwindled to near extinction, yet she remained, steady and self-possessed, somehow holding the tradition together.

Back in Britain, Rebanks found he couldn’t shake the memory of the woman on the rocks: fierce, enigmatic and strangely familiar. Time passed. Then, feeling compelled to return, he wrote to her. Her reply was brisk and urgent: bring work clothes, bring strong boots, and come quickly. Her health was failing, and the season was about to begin.

Travelling to the edge of the Arctic Circle, Rebanks joined her for her final season on the island. What follows is a remarkable chronicle of that time, a portrait of a stark, ancient landscape and the woman who devoted her life to tending it. He witnesses the gruelling isolation of winter, the relentless labour demanded by the land and sea, and the exhilarating arrival of the endless summer light, when the ducks abandon their nests and leave behind their precious down, shimmering like “feathered gold”.

As the months unfold, Rebanks comes to see that the woman’s world, and the woman herself, are far more complex than he ever imagined. What began as an attempt to escape his own life becomes a profound voyage into self-knowledge, forgiveness and the quiet resilience required to endure.