Overview

Antlers of Water is an anthology of contemporary Scottish nature writing, edited and introduced by Kathleen Jamie. We move through essays, poems, and visual work that keep shifting the scale, from remote islands to back gardens, from wild swimming to everyday encounters with birds and insects. The collection is not trying to sell us a clean wilderness. It keeps reminding us that nature is where we already live, and that our relationship with it is changing fast.

Writing & Voice

We enjoyed the range of voices. Some pieces are quiet and close to the ground. Others are sharper, funnier, and more openly political. The editing holds it together without sanding off the differences, so we feel the book as a conversation rather than a single mood. We kept finding lines and scenes that made us look again at familiar places.

Content & Perspective

We liked how the book refuses a single idea of what counts as nature. We get beaches, woods, and weather, but we also get cities, domestic spaces, and the ordinary creatures that share them with us. We also felt the collection stay honest about damage and loss, without turning into doom or comfort. We are asked to pay attention, and then to sit with what that attention shows.

Themes

We keep coming back to care, responsibility, and the more-than-human world. The book asks what we notice, what we ignore, and what we take for granted. It also presses on how stories about landscape can hide power, ownership, and violence, even when they sound gentle. We finished with a stronger sense that love for place is not enough on its own.

What Worked

• Varied forms that keep our attention shifting and alive.
• Wide Scotland from islands to gardens, without a single tidy narrative.
• A clear edge where beauty and responsibility sit together.

Minor Quibbles

• As with most anthologies, we found the impact uneven from piece to piece.
• Some shifts in style can feel sudden when we read straight through.

Final Thoughts

We liked it because it will not let us treat landscape as a hobby, and it keeps dragging us back to the real cost of looking away.

Rating: ★★★★½ / 5