Bothy
LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE
‘The bothy embrace is addictive’ ADAM NICOLSON
'Will have you reaching for your boots’ CAL FLYN
The door to the bothy is always unlocked, you just need to step inside.
You will find them in the mountains. You will find them in the wilderness. A bothy is a remote hut you can’t reserve, with no electricity, mod-cons or running water. And it’s here you’ll find Kat Hill – kettle on, feet up and pen out.
Leading us on a gorgeous and erudite journey around the UK, Kat reveals the history of these wild mountain shelters and the people who visit them. With a historian’s insight and a rambler’s imagination, she lends fresh consideration to the concepts of nature, wilderness and escape. All the while, Kat weaves together her story of heartbreak and new purpose with those of her fellow wanderers, past and present.
Writing with warmth, wit and infectious wanderlust, Kat moves from a hut in an active military training area in the far-north of Scotland to a fairy-tale cottage in Wales. Along her travels, she explores the conflict between our desire to preserve isolated beauty and the urge to share it with others – embodied by the humble bothy.
Bothy is a stirring, beautiful book for anyone who longs to run away to the wilds.
Kat Hill is an author & researcher based on the west coast of Scotland. She has a PhD from the University of Oxford (2011), where she was also a British Academy Postdoctoral Award holder. Kat has been the recipient of numerous grants from major academic funders, and she is the author of the prize-winning book, Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief: Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585 (Oxford University Press, 2015). Most recently she held an Environmental Humanities fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh and completed an MA in Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa. Kat lectured at Oxford, UEA and Birkbeck College for ten years before leaving academia and London for a life in Scotland to write, and she currently works as Community Engagement Coordinator for Highlands Rewilding. She is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and a European champion.