Rating
The Pequod Review:
Kathleen Jamie's Sightlines is a celebration of the natural world — the fjords of Greenland, the Scottish hills, prehistoric caves in Spain, and the cells under a microscope. Jamie's prose is a little airy and insubstantial, but her book has some beautiful moments:
We know we are a species obsessed with itself and its own past and origins. We know we are capable of removing from the sanctuary of the earth shards and fragments, and gently placing them in museums. Great museums in great cities — the hallmarks of civilization.
[...]
There are myths and fragments which suggest that the sea that we were flying over was once land. Once upon a time, and not so long ago, it was a forest with trees, but the sea rose and covered it over. The wind and sea. Everything else is provisional. A wing’s beat and it’s gone.
Fans of Bruce Chatwin or Robert Macfarlane will probably like this one a lot.