What do you think?
Rate this book
A Year's Turning
This memorable journal of one year in a remote cottage on the west Irish coast is destined to become a classic of Irish nature writing. For nearly twenty years, Michael Viney's popular column in the Irish Times, ""Another Life, "" has captured the beauties and mysteries of the natural world in Ireland. This lyrical month-by-month journal affirms his reputation as a uniquely gifted, compassionate, and informed commentator. A Year's Turning chronicles his family's life of self-sufficiency in the country. Viney weaves personal memories and reflections as he observes the effects of one year's passing on the land, animals, and landscape around him, to create a ""mosaic of all the years, each month an essay in remembrance."" He begins with January and the snow, gale-force winds, and rough seas. Come June, the house ""breathes gently, all doors and windows open to whatever breeze there is...besieged by light."" Come December, it ends, or begins again, the year's turning. This is the culmination of two decades lived close to land and its creatures.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1997
14 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 1, 2023
This is a beautiful book from start to finish. I lost count of how many times I would stop to re-read a particularly affecting passage or take a picture of it - my phone’s camera roll is filled with Viney now.
He reminds me of John McPhee: they share a deep love for the natural world and a respect for the reader. (If you’re a city-dweller, particularly if that city isn’t in Ireland, you may want to keep a nature guide or dictionary close to hand, or accept that you won’t understand every word. I opted for the latter approach, figuring that I would likely re-read it someday.)
“Quitting your big-city job to live off the land” sounds like a trite concept for a book, and while Viney doesn’t shy away from his rookie mistakes and naive aspirations, nor does he dwell on them. The book isn’t about him, and it’s all the better for it.
Viney died just a few days ago - may his work stay on TBR lists for years to come.
4.5/5
He reminds me of John McPhee: they share a deep love for the natural world and a respect for the reader. (If you’re a city-dweller, particularly if that city isn’t in Ireland, you may want to keep a nature guide or dictionary close to hand, or accept that you won’t understand every word. I opted for the latter approach, figuring that I would likely re-read it someday.)
“Quitting your big-city job to live off the land” sounds like a trite concept for a book, and while Viney doesn’t shy away from his rookie mistakes and naive aspirations, nor does he dwell on them. The book isn’t about him, and it’s all the better for it.
Viney died just a few days ago - may his work stay on TBR lists for years to come.
4.5/5
December 14, 2023
pleasantly surprised by this book as i was expecting it to veer too much into just classification of various mayo plants but it was a pretty enjoyable read if a bit meandering at times
January 12, 2016
I enjoyed reading Michael Viney's journal of a year spent in Thallabawn, a town land in Mayo, Ireland, the land which the poet Michael Longley described as 'raven's territory, skulls, bones'. The vicissitudes of the ewes in March are evoked with great tenderness and Michael wrote that he felt sorry for them:
'I feel sorry for the ewes across the hedge. One bitter hail-squall after another sweeps in from the islands, beats down the foam on the breakers, and hisses up from the dunes to blot out my window in a riotous tattoo. Wild geese in a hailstorm point their beaks to the sky, to save their skulls from being hammered. Sheep gallop to the nearest rushy hollow, turn their backs and out their heads down. The hailstones whack into their fleeces and hang there like rhinestones.'
Later on in this chapter he describes a Zen like moment when he tells the story of his friend who had pointed out the 'form of a hare':
'a deep warm hollow in the moor grass that had taken on, precisely, the shape of the absent hare, and the blackland, bare of any grass to hold it.'
I like the way the author introduces and explains Irish terms and expressions. In August he writes of the magic winds:
Dinneen offers winds for many occasions, among them gaoth an tsonais, the 'wind of good luck', and gaoth ghaibhtheach gheinlidhe, the 'perilous magical wind' that blows from some unimaginable quarter.'
'I feel sorry for the ewes across the hedge. One bitter hail-squall after another sweeps in from the islands, beats down the foam on the breakers, and hisses up from the dunes to blot out my window in a riotous tattoo. Wild geese in a hailstorm point their beaks to the sky, to save their skulls from being hammered. Sheep gallop to the nearest rushy hollow, turn their backs and out their heads down. The hailstones whack into their fleeces and hang there like rhinestones.'
Later on in this chapter he describes a Zen like moment when he tells the story of his friend who had pointed out the 'form of a hare':
'a deep warm hollow in the moor grass that had taken on, precisely, the shape of the absent hare, and the blackland, bare of any grass to hold it.'
I like the way the author introduces and explains Irish terms and expressions. In August he writes of the magic winds:
Dinneen offers winds for many occasions, among them gaoth an tsonais, the 'wind of good luck', and gaoth ghaibhtheach gheinlidhe, the 'perilous magical wind' that blows from some unimaginable quarter.'
December 3, 2021
A book for serious nature lovers, not the wistful weekend appreciation kind, but dedicated hard working, know the Latin translation for everything kind.
The book is written in months of the year, so I read one chapter every month, as a break between other books. The author and his wife gave up their corporate jobs to live the good life in a remote Irish headland.
Most chapters featured some kind of local animal.or bird and their activities to do with the seasons. The author had a particular interest in bird life so this featured consistently.
There was nothing pretty or romantic about the transition to living sustainably, it seemed like nothing but cold hard work. The pages about dehorning baby goats were just horrendous. As well as the ones about trying to skin eels.
I'll keep my corporate job and happily remain the wistful weekend nature lover!
The book is written in months of the year, so I read one chapter every month, as a break between other books. The author and his wife gave up their corporate jobs to live the good life in a remote Irish headland.
Most chapters featured some kind of local animal.or bird and their activities to do with the seasons. The author had a particular interest in bird life so this featured consistently.
There was nothing pretty or romantic about the transition to living sustainably, it seemed like nothing but cold hard work. The pages about dehorning baby goats were just horrendous. As well as the ones about trying to skin eels.
I'll keep my corporate job and happily remain the wistful weekend nature lover!
January 15, 2023
This was such a mixed read. It started off as a solid 5 stars, with beautifully written and detailed observations of the changing seasons in a small corner of the Irish countryside. I love this kind of book when it is well written, and reading through January and February, I thought this was going to be one of my favourite books of the year.
Then we got to the summer, and Viney suddenly seemed to lose his way. First, he talks about his daughter being friendless at school because he 'has' to write about the neighbours in his newspaper column and their kids don't want to be friends with her in case their families get put into an article. So he buys her a pony for company. (Would it not have been easier, cheaper and kinder to his daughter and the neighbours just to stop writing about the locals?) We had repetitive ramblings on evolution and how he is happy that it enables him to get rid of 'Christian hubris'(what on earth is that?!!), but he then goes on to say how much he struggles with the idea of our appreciation of beauty etc being the result of random chance. He constantly corrects himself if he uses any 'non evolutionary' words (so anything that implies design or purpose in the world around) and goes off into another long apology as to why he shouldn't have said what he said... It all gets a bit boring - does he really imagine that Dawkins & Co are going to send him hate mail if his vocabulary falls short of their standards? And then in August, instead of writing about what is going on around him, he spends about two thirds of the month talking about a trip he made to the Arctic tundra in the past, much of which didn't even take place in August.
He seemed to get back on track in the autumn, and the last couple of chapters were as good as the first couple. It's just a shame he couldn't maintain that standard of writing throughout the book, and that it all went so wrong in the middle.
Then we got to the summer, and Viney suddenly seemed to lose his way. First, he talks about his daughter being friendless at school because he 'has' to write about the neighbours in his newspaper column and their kids don't want to be friends with her in case their families get put into an article. So he buys her a pony for company. (Would it not have been easier, cheaper and kinder to his daughter and the neighbours just to stop writing about the locals?) We had repetitive ramblings on evolution and how he is happy that it enables him to get rid of 'Christian hubris'(what on earth is that?!!), but he then goes on to say how much he struggles with the idea of our appreciation of beauty etc being the result of random chance. He constantly corrects himself if he uses any 'non evolutionary' words (so anything that implies design or purpose in the world around) and goes off into another long apology as to why he shouldn't have said what he said... It all gets a bit boring - does he really imagine that Dawkins & Co are going to send him hate mail if his vocabulary falls short of their standards? And then in August, instead of writing about what is going on around him, he spends about two thirds of the month talking about a trip he made to the Arctic tundra in the past, much of which didn't even take place in August.
He seemed to get back on track in the autumn, and the last couple of chapters were as good as the first couple. It's just a shame he couldn't maintain that standard of writing throughout the book, and that it all went so wrong in the middle.
August 7, 2021
A beautifully written, thoroughly enjoyable read as Michael Viney takes us through the ups and downs on his remote cottage farm in County Mayo. An honest account of how he and his wife put down roots and create a self-sufficient life in rhythm with the tides and seasons. Their warmth and love of nature shines through it all.
May 2, 2023
This book was very different than books I typically enjoy but I liked it.
August 2, 2012
Sweet. it's nature writing so not for everyone.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews