The Salt Path
There ’ s an irony that the first book available since lockdown for the U3A Book Group to which I belong is my choice along with another extremity and I can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate make our Zoom discussions for it ! The Salt Path has been a book I ’ ve wanted to read since it was first gear published in 2018 because I ’ five hundred learn such fantastic things about it. I ’ ll fair have to parcel my thoughts here by room of a review .
Published by Penguin, The Salt Path is available for buy through the links here .
The Salt Path
Reading: The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their support. With nothing left and little time, they make the audacious and impulsive decisiveness to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall .
Carrying entirely the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every footfall, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable travel .
The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true narrative of coming to terms with grief and the healing world power of the natural universe. ultimately, it is a depiction of home, and how it can be lost, rebuild and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways .
My Review of The Salt Path
Ray and Moth find their lives dramatically altered by context .
My word. What a book. It ’ south going to be crafty to review The Salt Path because it ’ s a book preferably unlike any other I ’ ve read. Part memoir, part history, travelogue or gazetteer The Salt Path is a blend of brilliant description, checkup insight and a true fib of humanness at its most basic and sublime in equal measure. It is besides an intimate portrayal of a marriage where love overrides everything else. What I indeed enjoyed besides was that even though catalyst for the ledger arises out of momentous adversity, there ’ mho placid humour and positivity to be had. The ongoing theme of Moth being mistaken for Simon Armitage, for exercise, made me smile every time he was mentioned. indeed, I loved every single syllable of this book .
Reading The Salt Path took me vicariously as far from my comfort zone as it is potential to be as I experienced Raynor Winn ’ mho life so completely. The descriptive choice of her write is quite fantastic so that I felt the sting of the wind, rain and salt on her journey with Moth. Familiar with the area Ray writes about, it felt to me as if I were with them both every step of the way, whilst at the lapp time I couldn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate imagine how I might have responded to life ’ randomness events had I been Ray. This is skilled writing indeed because it draws in the reader and compels them to read on even when they may be leery of the content based around Moth ’ randomness illness. I felt Raynor Winn ’ randomness word picture of nature had the quality of Gerard Manly Hopkins ’ poetry as she painted a intense image of the weather, the birds and animals, and the characteristics of the path she was taking, both literally and metaphorically. I was mesmerised .
The people Ray and Moth encounter as they walk are a strike cross-section of company and I found my attitude towards those who find themselves dispossessed sharpening and clarifying as I read. I think Raynor Winn has managed to make me a more thoughtful and understand person through my read – not just of those I meet and interact with, but of myself excessively .
Underpinning the travel is a depth of emotion I found incredibly affecting. There ’ randomness overwhelming grief and loss but, equally, uplifting joy and hope, so that reading The Salt Path made me reflect on my own life, what I ’ ve achieved and what I might still like to do. I have a feel it is one of the most personally influential books I ’ ve read. I found The Salt Path an about hypnotic read that drew me in until the last here and now and held my care firm. I loved it and am despairing to know what happened adjacent for Ray and Moth.
About Raynor Winn
Since travelling the South West Coastal Path, Raynor Winn has become a regular long-distance pedestrian and writes about nature, homelessness and wild camp. She lives in Cornwall. The Salt Path was her first record and became a Sunday Times best seller in hardback and paperback book. It was shortlisted for numerous prizes including the Costa, the Wainwright and the Stanfords Travel Writing awards .
You can follow Raynor on Twitter @ raynor_winn. You ’ ll besides find her on Instagram .
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