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The Turning Tide
- A Biography of the Irish Sea
- Narrated by: Jon Gower
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
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The Turning Tide
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Summary
‘Fascinating, spellbinding, erudite and great fun.’ Roddy Doyle
‘Remarkable. Lively … Gower writes beautifully [and] the book is profoundly popular.’ Times Literary Supplement
The Turning Tide is a hymn to a sea passage of world-historical importance. Combining social and cultural history, nature-writing, travelogue and politics, Welshman Jon Gower charts a sea which has carried both Vikings and saints; invasion forces, royals and rebels; writers, musicians and fishermen.
The divided but interconnected waters of the Irish Sea – from the narrow North Channel through St George’s Channel to where the Celtic sea opens out into the wide Atlantic – have a turbulent history to match the violence of its storms. Jon Gower is a sympathetic and interested pilot, taking the reader to the great shipyards of Belfast and through the mass exodus of the starving during the Irish Famine in coffin boats bound for America. He follows the migrations of working men and women looking for work in England and tells the tales of more casual travellers: sometimes seasick, often homesick too.
The Irish Sea is also a place with an abundant natural history. The rarest sea bird in Europe visits its coasts in summer while the rarest goose wings in during winter.
The Turning Tide navigates waters teeming with life, filled with seals and salt-tanged stories and surveyed by seabirds. Lyrically written and fizzing with curiosity, this is a remarkable and far-reaching book.
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What listeners say about The Turning Tide
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- veyza
- 22-02-23
Beautifully written and read
A beautifully written and performed portrait populated by shearwaters, geese, lighthouse keepers, shipbuilders and saints. This book places the Irish Sea at the heart of the British Isles.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Simon M.
- 29-05-23
A charming potted history of The Irish Sea.
About a third of the way through this book I seriously thought that I was listening to the birdwatchers guide to the Irish Sea. This part of the book is crammed with ornithological facts and behavioural traits and it is clear that the author John Gower is a keen twitcher. It is not what I bought this audiobook for.
Nonetheless I perservered and I am glad I did. I couldn’t help but like John Gower’s enthusiasm for his subject, his keen delivery and mellifluous tone, even if he is rather partial to using words like “fecund” and “quotidien” rather liberally.
He packs in so many facts and stories into this book it could easily have been three times the size and still have made good listening. Sadly some stories were skimmed over and others missed out altogether. I was disappointed not to hear more about the adventures of Moelfre Lifeboat Coxswain Dic Evans and his crew, or those of his Holyhead RNLI colleague Will “bach” Jones. Indeed the wartime exploits of the legendary Norman Warden Owen DSM (read his obituary on line) were omitted altogether, as were the stories of so many seafarers throughout the ages, including Irish Sea mercantile marine icon Captain Macgregor Skinner and the many world-class yachtsmen who hail from these seas.
Gower also dusts over the fascinating stories of the various private lighthouses that were purchased under Acts of Parliament and omits altogether the story of the telegraph system that was able to send notice of ships arrival to Liverpool within minutes of being sent from North Stack. This is a rich vein that is worthy of a lot more research.
Here’s hoping John Gower writes another book on this subject, there is so much to cover.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- DMC
- 09-03-23
Misleading title
Although a fairly interesting history, this book should be sub titled ‘a Biography of the Celtic Sea’ as there is almost nothing about the Irish sea north of Wales. Disappointing
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