Shiver: The Lessons of the Loch

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After Brigid Lowe’s world is upended, Scotland becomes her home. Its icy, wild waters a place of a visceral relief. Baptising herself into this new life, she determines to swim the country’s thirty thousand lochs. To plunge into this landscape in the hopes of gaining a fluid sense of herself and who she might become.

And so Brigid’s loch adventures begin: stepping into ice and caves and sacred springs, she swims with birds, conger eels and seals, across forest and mountain and moor, alone and with her children in tow. And as she comes to know these secretive pools, with their vaulting depths and softer shallows, she walks the line between recklessness and safety, discovering new edges of pain and pleasure, of strength and endurance.

Shiver is a love-letter to Caledonia – its flowers and rocks, its bogs and legends and hills – and to its chill waters, which swept Brigid off her feet only to carry her back home again.

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‘A book to bring delight to lovers of water in all its forms and manifestations… Brigid Lowe inspires us by piercing observation and the indomitability of her spirit.’ Esther Woolfson, author of Corvus: A Life With Birds 

‘A real cold-lovers tour of the waters of Scotland… Shiver will make you want to get out your maps, pack up your swimming kit, fill your flask, and make plans.’ Polly Atkin, author of Swimming the Seasons

‘Immersive, insightful and beautifully written… Brigid Lowe invites us to reclaim our adventurous spirit.’ Elizabeth Sulis Kim, author of The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom