Bothy
In Search of Simple Shelter
Published on 8. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-0-00-861903-9 (ISBN)
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE
A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
'The bothy embrace is addictive' ADAM NICOLSON
'Will have you reaching for your boots' CAL FLYN
.......................................................................
A bothy is a remote hut in the wilderness that you can't reserve, with no electricity, mod-cons or running water. The doors are always unlocked, you just need to step inside.
From the rugged cliffs at the northern tip of Scotland to the fairy-tale valleys of Wales, historian Kat Hill tours us across the UK exploring the history of these wild shelters and her fellow wanderers - past and present.
Bothy is a stirring, beautiful book for anyone who longs to run away to the wilds
.......................................................................
'A thoughtful exploration of what these remote outposts mean to their users'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'A beguiling combination of travel writing, nature writing, social history and personal reflection'
DAILY MAIL
A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
'The bothy embrace is addictive' ADAM NICOLSON
'Will have you reaching for your boots' CAL FLYN
.......................................................................
A bothy is a remote hut in the wilderness that you can't reserve, with no electricity, mod-cons or running water. The doors are always unlocked, you just need to step inside.
From the rugged cliffs at the northern tip of Scotland to the fairy-tale valleys of Wales, historian Kat Hill tours us across the UK exploring the history of these wild shelters and her fellow wanderers - past and present.
Bothy is a stirring, beautiful book for anyone who longs to run away to the wilds
.......................................................................
'A thoughtful exploration of what these remote outposts mean to their users'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'A beguiling combination of travel writing, nature writing, social history and personal reflection'
DAILY MAIL
Reviews / Votes
'A thoughtful exploration of what these remote outposts mean to their users, drawing on archived visitor books as well as describing the bothies' redemptive role in her own life'Financial Times
'The result is a thoughtful and thought-provoking, a beguiling combination of travel writing, nature writing, social history and personal reflection'
Daily Mail
'Kat Hill thoughtfully couples history with memoir; these personal touches endear the reader to a life of bothy-dwelling. This is a warm, erudite work that neatly explores our relationship with wild landscapes and carefully considers our place within them'
New Stateman
'An intelligent and thoughtful book that will have you reaching for your boots. Hill offers learned and considered reflections on the consolations of retreat, simple living, of finding even temporary shelter when all outside is tempest. It is also a meditation on change: climate change, emotional growth, and the unquenchable nostalgia for a past slipping ever further from view'
Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment
'Marvellous... It would be difficult to think of a subtler or more careful exploration of the wrinkles of modern life and modern nature, with all its traps, delights, delusions and possibilities.
Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides
'A questing, atmospheric collection of meditations of the essential nature of bothy life. A book steeped in dubbin, wood smoke, lanolin, and love of wild places, Kat Hill's hymn to the humble highland hut will delight and inform armchair travellers, weekend walkers, and veteran rough-stuffers alike'
Dan Richards, co-author of Holloway
'You can't imagine just how much I loved the book... the universality underneath the particularity is going to strike a chord with so many readers'
Sophie Howarth, author of Looking at Trees and co-founder of The School of Life
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
350 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-861903-9 (9780008619039)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Kat Hill is an author & researcher based on the west coast of Scotland. She has a PhD from the University of Oxford (2011), where she was also a British Academy Postdoctoral Award holder. Kat has been the recipient of numerous grants from major academic funders, and she is the author of the prize-winning book, Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief: Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585 (Oxford University Press, 2015). Most recently she held an Environmental Humanities fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh and completed an MA in Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa. Kat lectured at Oxford, UEA and Birkbeck College for ten years before leaving academia and London for a life in Scotland to write, and she currently works as Community Engagement Coordinator for Highlands Rewilding. She is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and a European champion.