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Belonging: Natural histories of place, identity and home
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2022
Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy – home to standing dead trees known as snags, which support the overall health of the forest.
Belonging is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves.
Beautifully written and featuring Amanda Thomson's artwork and photography throughout, it explores how place, language and family shape us and make us who we are.
LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2022
Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy – home to standing dead trees known as snags, which support the overall health of the forest.
Belonging is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves.
Beautifully written and featuring Amanda Thomson's artwork and photography throughout, it explores how place, language and family shape us and make us who we are.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 4, 2022
22 people are currently reading
593 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Thomson
12 books4 followersAmanda Thomson is a Scottish visual artist and writer who lives and works in Glasgow and Strathspey. Much of her work in art and writing is about the Highlands of Scotland, its landscape and nature, and how we are located (and locate ourselves) in the world. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature, was published by Saraband Books in 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 25 reviews
December 29, 2022
Beautifully written, rich in fascinating details of nature encountered on walks especially in the Highland forests where the author lives. Lots more, contextualising the author and what belonging means to her, interspersed with images from her art practice and Scots celebrations. Multi-faceted and original, a very pleasing read.
September 6, 2025
I bought this to take on a bike trip, but we were pedaling too hard to do any reading. A deep meditation on memory, identity, and home. & I loved reading about how Amanda’s connection to the highlands and her ecological work directly shaped her artistic practice. Really gorgeous book to have return too, warming and nostalgic.
July 7, 2025
What a pleasure to read this book, and can't help but feel so excited and smug to live in Scotland too! Amanda Thomson has a remarkable way of flowing from social history, to ecology, from printmaking explanations to personal memories and experiences of racism and back to migratory patterns of swallows! It also made me question my own relationship to place and my own judgements of who 'belongs' where. Delighted to find out there were also pictures!
February 17, 2024
4.5 stars
I picked this up on a whim at Argonaut Books in Leith, Edinburgh last summer and I'm so glad I did.
It's a beautiful book blending nature writing with memoir, where the author reflects on identity, belonging to a place, the innate importance and beauty of nature, and personal histories. She's a queer Black Scottish artist, and her creative lens really shines in the descriptions of nature, the photographs and art she shares, and her reflections on family history.
While she does spend some time discussing the unique experiences of growing up Black and (white) Scottish and how that has influenced her life's experiences and trajectories, she focuses more so on her maternal family history, and the stories we do and don't tell. Memory is a big theme - what we remember and how, and how accurate those memories may be to the actual events and to the people themselves. One of my favourite reflections was on how we can only ever know people second and third-hand, and I found that very powerful.
Throughout the book are lists of old Scots words and their definitions - Thomson is fascinated by the language and the nuance and variety it has to describe natural phenomena, and I thought the lists' inclusion helped me better understand the landscape that I've only briefly visited and experienced myself.
There are so many beautiful descriptions of birds, walking through forests and natural landscapes, interspersed with history lessons of the land and how it has changed over time due to human efforts.
"Often I find myself thinking about what it is to care about land and about people - what is here, what has been, what we're moving towards. And this is really what belonging is about. It's about noticing and caring and taking stock. It's also about home, and what makes us feel at home, and the different things that home can be. Toni Morrison asks, 'How do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do?'" (page 18)
"How can we understand the ways in which the past impacts on our sense of the present and, thereafter, our possible futures? Scotland and its long and short, natural and unnatural histories and the transformation of its people and land have been surveyed in non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and song and the complexities of the Clearances, Scotland's role in the British Empire and its involvement of its people in colonisation, subjugation and slavery have been written about by many far more knowledgeable than me." (page 236)
If nature memoirs are your thing, I definitely recommend this hidden gem.
I picked this up on a whim at Argonaut Books in Leith, Edinburgh last summer and I'm so glad I did.
It's a beautiful book blending nature writing with memoir, where the author reflects on identity, belonging to a place, the innate importance and beauty of nature, and personal histories. She's a queer Black Scottish artist, and her creative lens really shines in the descriptions of nature, the photographs and art she shares, and her reflections on family history.
While she does spend some time discussing the unique experiences of growing up Black and (white) Scottish and how that has influenced her life's experiences and trajectories, she focuses more so on her maternal family history, and the stories we do and don't tell. Memory is a big theme - what we remember and how, and how accurate those memories may be to the actual events and to the people themselves. One of my favourite reflections was on how we can only ever know people second and third-hand, and I found that very powerful.
Throughout the book are lists of old Scots words and their definitions - Thomson is fascinated by the language and the nuance and variety it has to describe natural phenomena, and I thought the lists' inclusion helped me better understand the landscape that I've only briefly visited and experienced myself.
There are so many beautiful descriptions of birds, walking through forests and natural landscapes, interspersed with history lessons of the land and how it has changed over time due to human efforts.
"Often I find myself thinking about what it is to care about land and about people - what is here, what has been, what we're moving towards. And this is really what belonging is about. It's about noticing and caring and taking stock. It's also about home, and what makes us feel at home, and the different things that home can be. Toni Morrison asks, 'How do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do?'" (page 18)
"How can we understand the ways in which the past impacts on our sense of the present and, thereafter, our possible futures? Scotland and its long and short, natural and unnatural histories and the transformation of its people and land have been surveyed in non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and song and the complexities of the Clearances, Scotland's role in the British Empire and its involvement of its people in colonisation, subjugation and slavery have been written about by many far more knowledgeable than me." (page 236)
If nature memoirs are your thing, I definitely recommend this hidden gem.
September 2, 2022
How do we identify ourselves and what defines us? Sometimes it's not easy to describe ourselves and reducing ourselves to tick boxes such as 'ovo-lacto vegetarian/Black British/Black Scottish/mixed ethnicity/gay/civilly partnered'. And sometimes these tick boxes don't exactly align with how we see ourselves, so can leave us to feel 'othered'.
With commentary on coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns, racism, homophobia, and how they have (or haven't) impacted Thomson are all included in a subtle yet powerful way. At the heart of this book is identity and pinpointing what, where, and who we call home.
I was initially expecting solely a nature memoir of the highlands in Scotland. Instead, I experienced Amanda Thomson's childhood and upbringing with stories of her family and how nature was engrained into her life from an early age - even without her realising.
The discussions about intersectionality and how different factors collide to impact how you react to different issues and situations.
I really liked the studies of language and the learning more of Scottish terminology and sayings that relate to nature. This was cleverly included throughout the book formatted as glossaries or dictionaries. As well as these sections, there were photographs and illustrations by the author which helped bring this book to life even more.
This new book by Amanda Thomson was published in August and I recommend it if you liked The Outrun by Amy Liptrot or The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. Thank you to Canongate for sending me this copy.
'We think of migration as a moving away from something unpleasant, when it is just as often a moving toward something beneficia;' - Scott Weidensaul.
With commentary on coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns, racism, homophobia, and how they have (or haven't) impacted Thomson are all included in a subtle yet powerful way. At the heart of this book is identity and pinpointing what, where, and who we call home.
I was initially expecting solely a nature memoir of the highlands in Scotland. Instead, I experienced Amanda Thomson's childhood and upbringing with stories of her family and how nature was engrained into her life from an early age - even without her realising.
The discussions about intersectionality and how different factors collide to impact how you react to different issues and situations.
I really liked the studies of language and the learning more of Scottish terminology and sayings that relate to nature. This was cleverly included throughout the book formatted as glossaries or dictionaries. As well as these sections, there were photographs and illustrations by the author which helped bring this book to life even more.
This new book by Amanda Thomson was published in August and I recommend it if you liked The Outrun by Amy Liptrot or The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. Thank you to Canongate for sending me this copy.
'We think of migration as a moving away from something unpleasant, when it is just as often a moving toward something beneficia;' - Scott Weidensaul.
July 19, 2023
A very good book about growing up as a Black Scottish woman and searching for identity and home in various places. I loved the nature writing and memoir bits. Having been to especially the Cairngorms a lot, I loved how I could recognise places. A truly fascinating read and I'm sad I didn't discover Amanda Thomson earlier, a much needed addition to nature writing in Scotland.
September 13, 2025
There are some really beautiful sections discussing peaceful nature scenes, interspersed with discussions of belonging; who gets to be where, who is allowed to "take" from places, where they put things, essentially discussions of colonialism, ecology, micro-sociology. I found the latter sections particularly interesting, and really, really wished there were more. Particularly about Scotland during the slave trade, and the historical figure that essentially argued his way out of being a slave.
Unfortunately these sections were far too short and rare, and whilst I really enjoyed them, I didn't feel much connection to the authors discussion of her family, as there wasn't enough detail to extrapolate them into my imagination fully, or even allow them to be their own characters. Some parts of this basically felt like they were only for the author, and the parts I really enjoyed were often a page or less at a time.
I'd love it if the author wrote a book discussing more of the colonial/nature/belonging talk, though. She's a really good writer.
Unfortunately these sections were far too short and rare, and whilst I really enjoyed them, I didn't feel much connection to the authors discussion of her family, as there wasn't enough detail to extrapolate them into my imagination fully, or even allow them to be their own characters. Some parts of this basically felt like they were only for the author, and the parts I really enjoyed were often a page or less at a time.
I'd love it if the author wrote a book discussing more of the colonial/nature/belonging talk, though. She's a really good writer.
December 28, 2022
What beauty is captured, preserved and shared here. Remnants of the various worlds inhabited, reimagined and recorded by the author are seamlessly drawn with bold historical and ginealogical lines and italicised times new Covid normal. It’s part (although accidentally) memoir and part natural history textured with word porn, visceral symbolism and underlined by the prejudice experienced as a black, lesbian, Scottish woman.
August 28, 2023
3.8
A refreshing memoir about nature and its life cycle, with beautiful discriptions on the northern landscapes of Scotland. Featuring Amanda’s artwork and photography throughout which is honestly so beautiful. It’s also also personal identity and humanity. And the importance of place, language, culture and family on individuality. Poetic, thought provoking anf powerful. This memoir is a reflection of self and nature.
October 13, 2022
A really interesting mix of a Scottish childhood - remembered through loving eyes, surrounded by family, skies and nature and the authors artistic practice and relationship to space and place as an adult. I loved her honesty about how her ideas and art is formed. All interspersed by amazing obscure Scottish word lists. Worked brilliantly on audio.
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January 12, 2025I feel like I did not manage to give this book all the attention it deserved as I would often get distracted looking at my own animals especially my rats, observing their ways, how they interact with each other, their environment and me. I would also get distracted by looking outside the window and just bird watching or just looking at the edges of branches.
I cannot give this book a rating as I feel like I did not properly thought about each concept. Ultimately, I don’t think I can give a rating to a book that felt deeply personal to the author and her experience.
The journey between space, body, time and their interconnectedness described powerfully and grounded back to the Scottish landscape, and more generally to the earth spoke to me in ways I cannot quite describe.
It invited me to slow down and look around me and just engage my senses to experience my surroundings, their mundanity with a new found sense of purpose and beauty. It prompted me to look at my own journey through countries and how I still look for smells that remind me of Italy, of the nature there that I cherished, lived and let it shape me as I was growing back. I find a piece of home, a home left behind but as the author says, maybe I also didn’t migrate to leave a harmful place rather to move to somewhere more beneficial. I wonder what constitutes home for me now and how past and present find ways to hold each other.
A powerful book that took great care in its language, and found a way to encompass so many aspects of existence that we often fail to see as intersecting and necessary in their intersection. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
I cannot give this book a rating as I feel like I did not properly thought about each concept. Ultimately, I don’t think I can give a rating to a book that felt deeply personal to the author and her experience.
The journey between space, body, time and their interconnectedness described powerfully and grounded back to the Scottish landscape, and more generally to the earth spoke to me in ways I cannot quite describe.
It invited me to slow down and look around me and just engage my senses to experience my surroundings, their mundanity with a new found sense of purpose and beauty. It prompted me to look at my own journey through countries and how I still look for smells that remind me of Italy, of the nature there that I cherished, lived and let it shape me as I was growing back. I find a piece of home, a home left behind but as the author says, maybe I also didn’t migrate to leave a harmful place rather to move to somewhere more beneficial. I wonder what constitutes home for me now and how past and present find ways to hold each other.
A powerful book that took great care in its language, and found a way to encompass so many aspects of existence that we often fail to see as intersecting and necessary in their intersection. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
April 7, 2025
'Belonging' by Amanda Thomson is subtitled 'Natural Histories of Place, Identity and Home'. I found it quite hard to slot this book into a particular category as it's kind of nature book, kind of a history book, kind of a memoir, kind of a book of lost words. The author is an artist who uses nature, place and identity for inspiration. She grew up in a small town near Glasgow. As a Black/mixed race girl she was 'different' and yet her (white) family had lived in the area for generations, so it was where she belonged. The book is written as a series of essays; each one focussing on a particular place and how it relates to her family and personal history. Each chapter links to an old or forgotten word too and there are pages of word groupings and their meanings scattered throughout the book. I enjoyed the book but found it one to dip in and out of, reading a chapter at a time rather than one to read from cover to cover in as short a time as possible.
September 28, 2022
"I think of snags as hooks on which we can hang past experiences that remind us of the disparate moments and aspects of our lives that have made us who we are, who we have become."
In this gorgeous book, we witness the existential ease with which Thomson word-paints for us pictures of her life and, by extension, our own. Reading this was a long, cool drink of soothing milk, coating the geo-spiritual palette with a membrane of whimsy, memory, a past made now, a future made possible, and today a soothing but imminent reminder of the precarious wonder of our days.
Thank you, Amanda Thomson for sharing so openly of your connection to your little world, made bigger (and ours) by your consideration of it.
In this gorgeous book, we witness the existential ease with which Thomson word-paints for us pictures of her life and, by extension, our own. Reading this was a long, cool drink of soothing milk, coating the geo-spiritual palette with a membrane of whimsy, memory, a past made now, a future made possible, and today a soothing but imminent reminder of the precarious wonder of our days.
Thank you, Amanda Thomson for sharing so openly of your connection to your little world, made bigger (and ours) by your consideration of it.
August 29, 2023
A very interesting read all about the author growing up as a Black, Scottish, gay lady.
She reflects on her family, identity and nature. Belonging is a memoir about what it is to have and what makes a home. The nature and landscapes/woods of Scotland are given the most loving reference.
A book that certainly makes you reflect on your own identity.
I have only docked a star as at times my attention wondered at the length her personal family was discussed and the Scottish word referencing got a bit too much.
She reflects on her family, identity and nature. Belonging is a memoir about what it is to have and what makes a home. The nature and landscapes/woods of Scotland are given the most loving reference.
A book that certainly makes you reflect on your own identity.
I have only docked a star as at times my attention wondered at the length her personal family was discussed and the Scottish word referencing got a bit too much.
August 3, 2024
I wanted to love this book. After living in Scotland (my ancestral homeland), I was really hoping to connect more to the place through story. I just couldn't discern the point of the book and it seemed more like facts about a place than a story of a place. Intentionally or not, the writing felt like wandering in the woods with no end in mind. I couldn't finish sadly. Maybe it caught me at the wrong time or it just wasn't for me but don't let that dissuade you.
September 20, 2022
A beautiful personal dictionary of words, landscape, and experiences. Amanda Thomson ends the book by talking about how this book wasn't intended to be a memoir, which it sort of is but not in a classic way. It's a picture of life, just taken from her perspective.
December 4, 2022
I'm not usually into memoirs but the cover and concept drew me in. I listened to this book and found it poignant and pleasant throughout. Some serious stuff tackled in an honest but non-aggressive and articulate way.
April 2, 2023
A glorious book from start to finish. Rich, warming and vibrant. A history of place and belonging, the love of a land lived in and explored. A rich tapestry of stories of home, family and adventure.
Just lovely. Thank you Amanda.
Just lovely. Thank you Amanda.
September 9, 2023
A beautifully written and illustrated book that also references old Scot’s words. Some I recognised but must I didn’t. The author explores her sense of belonging both to place and the wider environment.
Want to read
October 30, 2024Source: library Easy Hotel Oxford. Reading reviews its not what I thought it was about when I took a pic of cover for reference. I thought it was a discussion on 'belonging' & impact of place / meaning of home in relation to that.
I have noted it anyway, to keep an open mind, to possibly read
I have noted it anyway, to keep an open mind, to possibly read
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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May 2, 2023DNF
July 3, 2023
this book filled me with warmth and nostalgia for experiences ive never had and places ive never been. written with so much care it made me kind of emotional at times
November 2, 2024
Nice blend of biography and nature writing.
June 23, 2025
Very relaxing. To the point that I kept falling asleep whilst listening, so I gave up. DNF.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 25 reviews