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Malachy Tallack

Goodreads Author

Born

in The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.malachytallack.com

Twitter

malachytallack

Genre

Travel, Nonfiction, Fiction

Member Since

July 2015

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/malachytallack

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Malachy Tallack has written three works of non-fiction – Sixty Degrees North, The Un-Discovered Islands and Illuminated by Water – and two novels, The Valley at the Centre of the World and That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz. He won a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2014, and the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015. As a singer-songwriter he has released five albums and an EP, and performed in venues across the UK. He is from Shetland, and currently lives in Fife.

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Malachy Tallack’s books

Average rating: 3.85 · 2,610 ratings · 490 reviews · 12 distinct works • Similar authors

	Sixty Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home 3.79 avg rating — 742 ratings — published 2015 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Valley at the Centre of the World 3.76 avg rating — 653 ratings — published 2018 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz 4.15 avg rating — 447 ratings — published 2024 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes by Malachy Tallack (Goodreads Author), Katie Scott (Illustrator) 3.65 avg rating — 356 ratings — published 2016 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland by Kathleen Jamie (Editor), Amy Liptrot (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Malachy Tallack (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.01 avg rating — 253 ratings — published 2020 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Illuminated by Water: Fly Fishing and the Allure of the Natural World 3.97 avg rating — 95 ratings — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A BBC Christmas Collection by Alexander McCall Smith (Goodreads Author), Rachel Joyce, Ben Crompton 3.11 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 2022	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Extra Teeth - Issue Three by Alice Slater (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Okala Elesia (Contributor), Tice Cin (Contributor) 4.68 avg rating — 19 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Simple Fire: Selected Short Stories by George Mackay Brown, Malachy Tallack (Goodreads Author) (Editor) 4.10 avg rating — 20 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fair Isle Through the Seasons by Malachy Tallack (Goodreads Author), Roger Riddington really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Malachy Tallack's Blog

Book of the Week

Hearing your own words, your own thoughts, on the radio is a very strange experience. And to hear them in the voice of an actor, on Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’, is doubly so. Particularly when those thoughts include such personal subjects as my relationship with home, my childhood and the death of my father.

But of course, alongside the strangeness, the nerves and the worry about what listeners an Read more of this blog post »

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Published on July 17, 2015 06:58

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Malachy Tallack and 2 other people liked Ewan Sargent's review of Illuminated by Water: Fly Fishing and the Allure of the Natural World: "I finished the book, had tea, then went fishing which is a really good sign. Loved it. It's been awhile since I enjoyed a nice beautifully written philosophical descriptive fishing book like this. I was completely won over when he referenced Negley F" Read more of this review »
Mar 31, 2025 08:15AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Illuminated by Water by Malachy Tallack. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Illuminated by Water by Malachy Tallack <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Malachy Tallack liked Charlotte Wilson's review of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz: "It was the title that drew me to this book and the author is not someone I have come across before. The story spans two time periods and tells the tale of Sonny and Kathleen and their lives on Shetland, as well as Sonny's life at sea. They are the pa" Read more of this review »
Nov 15, 2024 03:33AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Malachy Tallack and 2 other people liked Fern A's review of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz: " Beautiful, heartwarming and lyrical, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel! Set in Shetland the tale interweaves the lives of several generations of islanders from the course of 1957 to the present day. We meet Sonny, who prides himself on hard wor" Read more of this review »
Nov 15, 2024 03:33AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Malachy Tallack liked Kevin Crowe's review of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz: "Malachy Tallack's latest novel "That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz" is a love letter to the Shetland Islands and an exploration of the power of music, in this instance of country music, a genre I have longed loved. I've even got a genuine Stetson, a prese" Read more of this review »
Nov 15, 2024 03:32AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

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Quotes by Malachy Tallack (?)

“Faced with the sky we imagine gods, faced with the ocean we imagine islands. Absence is terrifying, and so we fill the gaps in our knowledge with invented things. These bring us comfort, but they conflict, too, with our desire for certainty and understanding. And sometimes that desire gives us back the absences we sought to fill.”
― Malachy Tallack, The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes

tags: agnosticism, gods, islands

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“When someone you love is going to die, when you know they are going to die and there is nothing you can do to stop it, life splits. Half of you continues as if everything were normal. You get up in the morning, eat breakfast, brush your teeth. You do your work, see friends, watch television, go to sleep. You function. The other half, though, is always looking forward. It sees beyond the dying to the dead. It anticipates the absence that is to come. And yet somewhere there, between those two halves, the automaton and the seer, you must continue to love and to care for the one who is not gone yet, who is still there, temporary but real.”
― Malachy Tallack, The Valley at the Centre of the World

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