LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 SALTIRE AWARD In keeping with the concept of Cairn the 2025 reprint contains an added 'stone' - the much loved poem What the Clyde said after Cop 26 'This marvel of a book is a profound meditation on the precariousness of the planet ... these pieces kept bringing tears to my eyes, catching me offguard ... it is what art or, in this case, wonderful writing can do' Kate Kellaway, Observer Cairn: A marker on open land, a memorial, a viewpoint shared by strangers. For the last five years poet and author Kathleen Jamie has been turning her attention to a new form of writing: micro-essays, prose poems, notes and fragments. Placed together, like the stones of a wayside cairn, they mark a changing psychic and physical landscape. The virtuosity of these short pieces is both subtle and deceptive. Jamie's intent 'noticing' of the natural world is suffused with a clear-eyed awareness of all we endanger. She considers the future her children face, while recalling her own childhood and notes the lost innocence in the way we respond to the dramas of nature. With meticulous care she marks the point she has reached, in life and within the cascading crises of our times. Cairn resonates with a beauty and wisdom that only an artist of Jamie's calibre could achieve.

Exquisite ... luminous writing * Spectator *
Cairn is full of joyous observation, but also warnings ... we forget art as "artificial" and remember that artful language may be a force of nature * Guardian *
Kathleen Jamie's essay collections are among the constellations by which I navigate ... Cairn lights a bit more of the night * Sarah Moss *
This marvel of a book is a profound meditation on the precariousness of the planet ... these pieces kept bringing tears to my eyes, catching me offguard ... it is what art or, in this case, wonderful writing can do -- Kate Kellaway * Observer *
A heart-soaringly beautiful new book -- Charlie Connelly * New European *
[Cairn] is ultimately an uplifting book, exhilarating even, one whose nuggets of imagery and wisdom stay long in the memory -- Charlie Connelly * New European *
Praise for the Findings trilogy: A sorceress of the essay form. Never exotic, down to earth, she renders the indefinable to the reader's ear -- John Berger
Kathleen Jamie is a supreme listener ... clear, subtle, respectful, and so unquenchably curious that it makes the world anew -- Richard Mabey
A book of unparalleled beauty and rare exactness of language * Sunday Telegraph *
I put the book down again and thought: 'I wonder if I would actually kill to be able to write, or think, like that -- Nicholas Lezard * The Guardian *
It is not often that the prose of a poet is as powerful as her verse, but Jamie's is -- Diana Athill * Literary Review *

Kathleen Jamie is one of Britain's foremost poets and essayists. In 2021 she was appointed Scotland's Makar or National Poet. Her groundbreaking works of non-fiction - Findings (2005), Sightlines (2012) and Surfacing (2019) - are considered pioneers and exemplars of 'new nature writing'. She lives in Fife.