The Fish Ladder A Journey Upstream

Katharine Norbury Press Reviews

'What a delight! The Fish Ladder is a luminous sort of book, beautifully written, darting here and there like a kingfisher over a stream. A beautiful, strange, intoxicating and utterly unique story' Philip Pullman

'The Fish Ladder is truly compelling. Its diverse mix of nature, travel and personal history combines to produce a moving journal of one woman's endeavours to walk from dark into light. Warm and touching, it's impact lies in its simplicity and emotional power' Jo Brand

'This is an unusual memoir leading from the grief of a death to the shocking discovery of a birth. The fluid narrative, with its tributaries and false trails, its reflections of dream-like memories and focus on indiscernible destinations, seems to follow the rivers along which Katharine Norbury loves to travel. She has written a magical and most original first book' Michael Holroyd

'The Fish Ladder is a beautiful book. An exquisite example of 'new nature writing'. The scattered fragments of pain and loss and loveliness are bound together into a coherent whole. A generous, moving book and extraordinarily well written too' Sara Maitland

'There is much to learn from The Fish Ladder about how the memoir can tell a story as well as be a meditation; how language can be both profound and sensuous. It's an unsentimental but extraordinary exploration of how we use narrative to understand our place in the world' Amit Chaudhuri

'Deeply affecting, atmospheric and sensuous, The Fish Ladder is a beautifully written meditation of what it is to be alone, of yearning for connection and of the consolations of nature' Polly Samson