Land's Edge: a coastal memoir by Tim Winton
Penguin 2010. ISBN 9781926428284
(Age: Young adult/adult) Highly recommended. Tim Winton's deep love
of the Australian coast shines in Land's Edge: a coastal memoir.
I loved this memoir . . . Winton's writing as ever is painterly,
evocative, perfectly paced. He writes with a great love and respect
of the oceans and the creatures that live beneath the wave . . . to
read this memoir is to experience the majesty of the West Australian
coast through his eyes.
The reader is introduced to the watery world of a coastal life in
this gentle reflection of Tim Winton's formative years. He describes
how the coast anchors his life; how being on the edge of something
between the water and the outback informs his writing; how in the
memories from his childhood there is always . . . the briny smell of
the sea, and how he graduated from comic book to classic.
Tim Winton is a widely known Australian author and is the worthy
recipient of many awards. His books for adults and children have
been translated into twenty-five languages.
Narelle Autio's exquisite photographs are the perfect complement to
this work. Autio captures the essence of water, the movement, the
light.
The poetic beauty of Winton's prose draws me to his writing again
and again. I highly recommend Land's Edge: a coastal memoir
to a young adult/adult readership to appreciate the ocean in all its
raw beauty and danger, and to the poetry within this narrative.
Colleen Tuovinen