“I’ve swapped disco lights for celestial lights but I’m still surrounded by dancers. I am orbited by sixty-seven moons”
The Sunday Times runaway bestseller – an exhilarating nature memoir about recovering from alcoholism in Orkney
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2017 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE
WINNER OF THE 2016 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ONDAATJE PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 WELLCOME PRIZE
At the age of thirty, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney. Standing unstable on the island, she tries to come to terms with the addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney’s wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.
“A lyrical, brave memoir. It’s Liptrot’s aptitude for marrying her inner-space with wild outer-spaces that makes her such a compelling writer … I enjoyed this book enormously”
Will Self
guardian
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“The sheer sensuality of Liptrot’s prose and her steely resolve immediately put her right up there with the best of the best. Liptrot is an Orcadian warrior with the breeze in her blood and poetry in her fingers, and The Outrun may even be a future classic. Wherever she journeys next, you will want to go with her”
new Statesman
“An exhilarating memoir … Anyone who has ever been unhappy or unwise will find much that resonates in this powerful, beautiful writing”
Cathy Rentzenbrink
stylist
“An uncompromising account of addiction and recovery played out against the blasted fields of Orkney. Liptrot’s writing is strong and sure. The Outrun is a bright addition to the exploding genre of writing about place and our place in the natural world”
observer
“Remarkable … a meditative interior journey which Liptrot elevates to an art”
spectator
Amy Liptrot has published her work with various magazines, journals and blogs and she has written a regular column for Caught by the River, out of which The Outrun has emerged. As well as writing for major newspapers including the Guardian and the Observer, Amy has worked as an artist’s model, a trampolinist and in a shellfish factory. The Outrun was awarded the 2016 Wainwright Prize and the 2017 PEN Ackerley Prize and was shortlisted for the 2016 Wellcome Prize and the 2017 Ondaatje Prize.
@amy_may
“I enjoyed this book enormously, even as I worried about its brave but vulnerable author, struggling to reach the good life for which her parents once went in search.”
Will Self
The Guardian